Fedoras in "The Adjustment Bureau"

[ortega76]

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/adjustment-bureau-hats-5340362

[Eric Renderking Fisk]

Oh, there are a whole bunch of articles and other nuggets to debate linked to that article.

"What You Can Learn from Mad Men's Season 4 Style - Revisit TV's best-looking show with modern takeaways from each episode," By Elizabeth Valleau

Hats: How do you wear one these days without looking like a schmuck? Or without looking like Don Draper circa 1965, to be perfectly honest? These days, we tend to see the pork pie largely on junky rockers, homburgs on martyred gangster rappers, and all of the above on actual gangsters. Not so many flat caps and homburgs in '65 – it's fedora or bust for the fellas at Sterling/Cooper/Draper/Pryce.

And the fedora is, more or less, universally flattering — provided that it fits, of course. The angle at which you wear it makes perhaps the largest difference. Don wears his hat straight and level – all business. You can push it back for a bit of devil-may-care jauntiness. Or you can pull it down over your eyes for a dark and dramatic look, but beware: the jerk potential is high with a hat these days, now that it's a highly nonessential item. For my money, I would err on the side of jaunty and casual, to keep your lady friends from thinking you have an obsession with Humphrey Bogart.

I don't have an with Humphrey Bogart, just an obsession to be someone like him. She wrote that as if it's a bad thing.

You know... for a publication that's trying really hard to get me to link to more of their articles via the e-mail's they send me, they're also trying really hard to alienate and piss me off.

[Irish Fist]

"I would err on the side of jaunty and casual, to keep your lady friends from thinking you have an obsession with Humphrey Bogart."

Spoken like a total (I have a foul mouth!).

[Eric Renderking Fisk]

Can fedoras make a comeback? By Staci Sturrock | Style | March 04, 2011



Matt Damon brings back the buttoned-down look, fedora included, in the new sci-fi film, The Adjustment Bureau, opening today.

Don’t expect a revival of stylish porkpies, though. Hats clearly aren’t the everyday accessory they once were. But they have a forever friend in the Headwear Association, which celebrates its 103rd anniversary this month.

The group’s Headwear Hall of Fame honors those with a knack for wearing hats, even if few of them are old-school fedora faddists.

The most recent Hall of Famers, who were chosen by the association’s board last fall, include Aretha Franklin, Cameron Diaz and Gwen Stefani, as well as Carlos Santana, Ne-Yo and Payne Stewart.

[Eric Renderking Fisk]

I had this thought that should be our "Question Of The Week,"

Can a movie like "The Adjustment Bureau" bring about a revival for fedoras just as "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" did 30 years ago?

[Super Ordinary Guy]

Can a movie do that, sure....

Will this one do that? IMHO I think it is a little too early to tell, let's see how the public likes the movie...

People like to copy in real life what they admire in a movie, if the movie hits big, then I say Yeah it will help Fedora's...

But let me add I see more and more fedora's every year and I get a lot of positive comments when wearing my hats, just about every week.

I can't remember the last time I got a wise crack it was so long ago............ so they are catching on. I don't believe they will ever be at the popular level they once were but they now are and will be popular for some time IMHO.

[n11pilot]

Can a movie to that, sure....

Will this one do that? IMHO I think it is a little too early to tell, let's see how the public likes the movie...

People like to copy in real life what they admire in a movie, if the movie hits big, then I say Yeah it will help Fedora's...

But let me add I see more and more fedora's every year and I get a lot of positive comments when wearing my hats, just about every week.

I can't remember the last time I got a wise crack it was so long ago............ so they are catching on. I don't believe they will ever be at the popular level they once were but they now are and will be popular for some time IMHO.

I pretty much agree with that. If the movie is popular everything about the movie will be popular, for a while.

[DanielJones]

I think that if this film is popular enough you will see a few more on the streets but not on the level of Raiders 30 years ago. If Don Draper couldn't muster mass hat wear... But like SOG said, there are more hats being worn, I see it more in my area all the time, and more than just the cheap Tony Hawk cloth trilby types but good standard fedoras that have a look of the late 50's very early 60's. I get compliments all the time, and people asking me where I got my hat with genuine interest. So, I think that us proper hat wearing folks will have more influence on folks to want to go out and get a proper fedora than a movie will, but the movies do help since people do want to emulate something they like in the movies.

Cheers!

Dan

[cmalbrecht]

I haven't seen "The Adjustment Bureau", but I do see more hats all the time. I see more hats on sale all over as well, even in grocery stores and drugstores. Our big flea market has a number of stands selling hats. Unfortunately, all these items are cheap, mostly stingy brims. What do you want for $5? Even many of the bigger hat companies only offer S, M. L, XL. I knew my hat size when I was a teenager and my head hasn't changed on the outside, and not much on the inside either.

[john in covina]

In general commercially acclaimed films that feature fedoras, vintage items or fashions will spur on a small percentage of people to seek these things out. Some people may have small interest that get propelled to a higher level, while others may have a first time introduction that gets their interests started.

[davidg]

I agree, I see more hats all the time. I have gotten comments but they've all been complimentary. One was "You be WEARIN' that hat!" and while I can't deal with THAT English I accepted it as a compliment! Then again, I've a relative in Buffalo who thinks my hats are ridiculous and has told me if I want to look like the 40's I should get a time machine. He feels hats, .. like my several pocket watches and fountain pens.. are a "mere" affectation. Perhaps they are, .. but I tell him the same as a previous commenter, "you say that as if its a BAD thing!".. and then I smile!

[Eric Renderking Fisk]

I've a relative in Buffalo who thinks my hats are ridiculous and has told me if I want to look like the 40's I should get a time machine. He feels hats, .. like my several pocket watches and fountain pens.. are a "mere" affectation. Perhaps they are, .. but I tell him the same as a previous commenter, "you say that as if its a BAD thing!".. and then I smile!

I also have a relative that has a "problem" with my retrocentricity and fedora wearing. With the exception of having to see her maybe once a year she's practically cut me totally out of her life and even deletes the posts I write on her facebook page and hasn't said word one since I broke my back. I've had people on the other side of the globe send me e-mails and and make phone calls asking me if I was OK, but not a word from her.

... In fact, nobody in my family has called to make sure I'm OK, either. So I can't fault her too much.

I have a huge problem with a society that can accept, tolerate and even celebrate a celebrity's public drug use and subsequent meltdown on TV (hence our mockery of one of his most famous quotes as our forum slogan...) but shuns someone who just wants to party like it's 1939 and keeps his wardrobe retro. What does that say about us as a culture, country or species? You can be like Charlie Sheen and brag about the big rocks you smoke and bang prostitutes and porn stars and some might think you're cool, but the same people will alienate you for sporting a fedora. Explain to me how that's not screwed up.

David G - you a have a family here.

[DanielJones]

It's a human condition. The reptilian complex in our brains tells us fight or flight. Those of us more evolved beings understand why there is a like for retro clothing and hats. Those still primitive minds don't understand it. Thus they fear what they don't understand, and then they hate what they fear and want to destroy what they hate. So maybe we need to take pity on our caveman brethren who are less evolved than we. Understand that they still fear the night and believe in the boogyman. That they will lash out at us because they don't understand and thus fear us. Fortunately I have more evolved relatives for the most part. A couple are still in question though.

When you look at it this way, your relatives behavior makes sense.

As far as the Adjustment Bureau is concerned, I think it will make a minimal impact on hat wearing in the majority of the public that sees it. You will most likely get the teen that was like us when we saw Indy, and start wearing the stingy fedoras and straw fedoras that he or she can find. They may even gravitate to forums like us for further edification. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a new influx of member in the next few months and when this films comes out on DVD & Blu-Ray you may see another surge.

Cheers!

Dan

[Eric Renderking Fisk]

It never occurred to me that people consider many of us fedora wearers as "Dark," "Mysterious," "Sinister" and "Dangerous," until I read this article in The New York Times.

Uneasy Lies the Fedora in a Cap World

Most minorities have someone to speak up for them when the aspersions start flying. But members of one particular group have endured indignities for years, largely in silence.

We’re talking about people who wear real hats, not caps that are stuffed unceremoniously into coat pockets. Among the most put-upon are men who favor fedoras. Their numbers are said to be growing. Yet they have trouble shaking a stereotype that their preference in hats, of itself, suggests something ominous.

Hat-ism as an acceptable form of bigotry was discussed in this space years ago. It is revived now because of a new movie, “The Adjustment Bureau.” In it, mysterious men wearing fedoras of “Mad Men” vintage seem intent on tormenting Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.

Uh... no. I've been sticking up for us since 1982.

And yes, my fedora doesn't just suggest something ominous, it out-right yells it. We are a danger to ourselves and the boring people around us. Our energy is contagious.

[davidg]

I found that article a bit odd, .. I didn't like the tone of it... as if somehow liking something that had a flavor of the past was dangerous..

It might be said that most of us who contribute to the Fedora Chronicles have items and activities with a flavor of the past.. so I guess we're all dangerous.. .. again I've had nothing but good comments on my hats, and I don't even have a Penman, yet...