The new Stetson Belfast is one of the fastest selling hats at Hats Plus. High fashion at an affordable price helps to pave the way for its grand success.

The Stetson Belfast is fast becoming one of the most popular new hats in Hats Plus.

Why?

Well? What’s not to love?

The Belfast features Stetson’s classic, top-notch design and construction with its teardrop crown and snap brim that can be adjusted to be worn up or down to best suit your style. The handsome self band also catches the eye with its two-tone design.

Equally impressive is that this traditional man’s hat has an entry-level price that is much more affordable than other Stetson hats.

This pricing is made possible by Stetson’s use of a wool-fur felt blend that still looks fantastic without sacrificing quality. In fact, the wool used in this fedora helps to make the hat water repellant.

Is it any wonder why this hat is selling so quickly?

Stetson's Rick LaPorte visits Hats Plus with next fall's hat samples. He's wearing the all new Stetson Emmett, which will likely be one of our most popular new hats of the autumn. It is a fur felt fedora with an especially handsome braided leather hat band.

As the snow melts, the songbirds return and the buds start forming on the trees, it can mean only one thing. It is time to think about next winter.

Well, only in the hat business. Hatters are always manufacturing in the opposite season. That means we get a sneak peek at this coming autumn’s hottest new hats!

So far this week we’ve had visits from Kangol, Bailey, Dobbs and Stetson. There’s nothing that stirs a hat lover’s soul with anticipation like seeing those big, black tubes of hat samples coming through the door.

Today’s visit by Stetson’s Rick LaPorte showcased many intriguing new models of fedoras and headwear innovations.

“We’ve come out with a new wool-fur felt blend hat line,” LaPorte said. “It has exciting colors and band treatments, which are made in our Garland, Texas, hat facility.”

What are some of the advantages of a blended wool and fur felt? It is much softer than a wool hat and holds its color better, too. It is more affordable than a fur felt hat, and it is a little more water repellent.

We got a preview of the Stetson Belfast, which was one of their most appealing wool-fur felt fedoras. Thick, soft and warm, it offers a more popular short snap brim with a lower profile crown. The two-tone hat band uses a primary self band with a gently contrasting grosgrain band peeking out from below it.

One of this fall’s potentially biggest winners will be the fur felt Stetson Emmett. It has a teardrop crown accentuated by a braided leather hat band. The soft brim snaps up or down according to your preference. It will come in classic black and a handsome walnut.

Wanna sneak peek of your own. Rick’s wearing one in the photo.

Stay tuned and we’ll bring you more updates about next season’s hats as we learn more!

Men of all occupations and backgrounds wore hats back in the day. See how commonplace hats were for men in these old WPA posters.

Poking around the Library of Congress archives, it isn’t too hard to stumble upon those remarkable Works Progress Administration posters. In addition to the exciting Bauhaus and art-deco stylings, it is incredible how ubiquitous men’s hats were.

First-aid poster for farmers…hats. Coal miners…hats. Factory workers…hats.

Almost all men seemed to wear hats back then, regardless of social class or occupation. More than just a fashion accessory, your hat helped define you. It also served a practical purpose. Imagine working the fields 6 days a week without a brim on your hat to keep the sun off you. Imagine how cold, dirty or at risk your hair might be at getting snagged in machinery or catching fire. Those factories and mines didn’t have any OSHA standards to protect the workers. And while that might make some folks nostalgic, don’t forget how many people died or were maimed on the job back then.

Hats and caps still help present a distinct definition of yourself to the people who see you out and about. It is just a shame more people don’t wear them. We all look better in the right hat or cap.

As for the hats in these posters, you can still get them today. The blue hat worn in the farmer poster looks similar to the Bigalli Quickstep in navy blue (also inexpensive, durable, all-weather) and the tan hat looks like the Guerra Falbatravel in tan. In the “Goggles” poster, the guy is wearing a black spitfire. The Pennsylvania miner appears to be wearing what we call a “Fiddler.” See all of these hats and more at Hats Plus today.

Lushly set in 1949, the number one thing you can count on is the phenomenal wardrobe loaded with hats. If you especially like teardrop crowns for your fedoras, this movie will really trip your trigger.

Brolin leads the way for the good guys, and he’s as square jawed as Dick Tracy in the comic books. His hat of choice, however, is not banana yellow. His is a classic teardrop crown design where the crown is highest at the pinch and swoops down in the back as the teardrop rounds out. The Biltmore Ark hats that we carry are the same cut, if not color of Brolin’s topper. If you want the color and don’t mind a more general teardrop crown design, Biltmore’s Eleganza in “butterscotch” is a close match.

The police detective played by Ryan Gosling seems to have a new hat for every suit he wears in the film. Yet, the hat he probably wears most is a grey Stetson Downs. It has a narrower hat band and a teardrop crown.

Critics agree that Sean Penn as the villainous mob boss Mickey Cohen is truly sinister. His hat of choice in the film is a grey one with a center dent crown. The brim is worn up, which was done more frequently in the 1940s than it seems to be done today. Our best contender for that hat is the Stetson Temple, with its center dent crown and snap brim.

Breaking with the more formal wear hat designs is the character played by Robert Patrick. His hat is still a fedora, but it borrows a touch from the western tradition. Far from a cowboy hat, its skinny leather hat band and overall design plays a little more ruggedly and rural. A match for his hat is the Stetson Roadster. The Roadster’s snap brim might be a little smaller, but the walnut colored fur felt, skinny leather hat band and overall design is a pretty close match.

If there are other hats you want to match from the movies or TV, always feel free to write to us and ask.

In the meantime, see you at the movies.

These will be two premier fedoras prized by hat lovers.

Just today, I got to take a peek at these high-quality beauties. First up is the “Cary.” The Cary is a short-brim design much like the hat worn by Don Draper of “Mad Men.” It has a center dent crown, a wide, double-tailed bow band and a sumptuously smooth and soft feel.

Not to be out shown is the “Benchley.” With a similarly short brim to the Cary, the Benchley sports a teardrop crown. Each hat is the height of men’s fashion.

The craftsmanship is exquisite. Visit Chicago’s Hats Plus store or visit our website regularly to keep checking for you first look at Stetson’s newest beaver felt hats: The Cary and The Benchley!

Nathaniel prefers the new Stetson Brewster for its bound-edge brim and thin bow band.

Nathaniel ponders whether he sees a bird or a plane or Superman flying over Hats Plus. As for his choice of hat…

“It’s gotta be the Stetson Brewster,” he said. “You can’t beat a good Panama, but it was the bound-edge brim and skinny bow band that hooked me.”

Dress to impress with the Stetson Brewster, which looks great every place from the boardroom to the barbeque.

Set in 1954, DiCaprio and Ruffalo take on the classic detective look of the era. Short ties, raincoats and fedoras. The look works great for them, especially DiCaprio, who doesn’t have your typically dashing Hollywood mug. Yet for both men, the dress hats help frame their faces well.

Leonardo DiCaprio wears a grey fedora similar to this Biltmore Stewart fur felt dress hat in the movie "Shutter Island." The feather is optional, and you can pluck yours to look more like Leo.

DiCaprio and Ruffalo appear to wear different colors of the same model hat. The fur felt fedoras have a C-crown, or teardrop-shaped crown, that is wrapped with a medium to wide bow band–no feather.  Naturally, each government man wears his snap brim in the down position.

The fedora worn by DiCaprio looks like a Biltmore Stewart in steel or a Stetson Downs in caribou with a dark band. Ruffalo’s hat is harder to place. Although it is the same shape as the hats just named, we don’t carry those models in the tan/tawny felt with a dark brown band. We DO have have center-dent crown fedoras with similar coloring. The Selentino Sterling in light camel and the Stetson Temple in tawny will work nicely.  If you want a fancier silk finish to the hat, the Stetson Firenze in tawny also is great.

No matter what you choose, you’ll be sure to cause a sensation. At the bar, at the office, at the party…just stay away from the asylum.

“Hats in History” is a new feature looking at the great personalities of the past century and the hats they wore.

This photo from 1964 shows Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King. Dr. King is wearing a short-brimmed fedora similar to the Dobbs Dayton or Dynafelt Pinch sold at Hats Plus. The photo was taken by Herman Hiller.

To get things started, it seemed like a good idea to start with one the most influential Americans of the 20th century: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King is most famous for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement and use of nonviolence to help eliminate segregation and promote the dream of equality for all American citizens, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender or creed. He risked death daily to stand by his principles and was eventually assassinated for them at the age of 39. Before his death, Dr. King was one of the youngest recipients to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace, and he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He also was a hat man who kept up with the times. Dr. King can be seen in many pictures wearing several different style fedoras.

During the mid-’50s and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King was often photographed in a wide-brimmed light grey fedora with a black band. The hat had a center dent crown, and it looks similar to the Stetson Pinnacle and the Stetson Temple.

In the 1960s he was photographed in several stingy-brim fedoras. Although the colors varied, the hats had a wide dress band, center-dent crown and a fairly wide space between the pinch on either side of the hats. These are similar to our Dobbs Dayton and Dynafelt Pinch.

It is critical for every American to carry Dr. King’s legacy of peace and equality in their memory and actions. However if you want to wear the legacy of his fashion sense, the Pinnacle, Temple, Dayton or Pinch are a great place to start.

Raising a popular, but discontinued, fedora back into existance, Stetson has gone out of its way to impress with the new Roadster fedora.

Stetson and Dobbs, two of the most popular hat brands we carry at Hats Plus, have each brought back a favorite model of hat that many of our customers lamented would remain extinct forever!

First up is the Stetson Roadster. An update of the extremely popular, but discontinued, Stetson Roadmaster, the Roadster is a masculine fedora that is sure to turn heads. Its bold teardrop crown gives it a touch of urban style, but the thin leather dress band gives it a Western flair. Whether toolin’ around in your classic automobile, goin’ out to feed your horses or heading into the boardroom, the Roadster is a rugged looking hat that fits in any place.

Dobbs has also brought back their Hunter Mountain fedora. It is the ultimate in winter dress hats. It is extremely soft and warm, made from a longer cut genuine fur felt. With a nod to the Alpine origins of the fedora, the Hunter Mountain also features a rope band similar to a classic Tyrolean hat. Yet it is modern enough to look great with any top coat, as the temperature starts to dip.

To learn more about these hats or check out other classic fedoras, explore hats-plus.com.