Perfection is an Obsession

[MAB1]

I watch the Old Movie Channel a lot, TCM.

Those guys in the old days didn't care about pinch or perfection. They'd grab their hats and toss them around carelessly.

The only reason they looked good in the next shot was the hat handlers behind the scenes.

I kinda know how to shape my hat w/out a mirror but sometimes I'm way off.

I'm fine with the hats imperfections but... I'm weird about keeping it straight.

I guess that makes me OCD.

Got to get over it.

 

[WideBrimm]

Not to worry. Getting over perfection comes with practice. I should know.

 

[59Lark]

fedoras for the job.

Trick is too , have a barn fedora, last years favourite for dirty jobs,outside work or the barn. A straw fedora for hot weather, and a good clean one for good, and my favourite a black one for funerals or weddings, either way someone is getting it. I keep an new crisp one in a box just for a special occasion. I just cant remember a just occasion. lark59.

 

[Fredthecat]

Yep, TCM movies are great for hat watching. They grab em, bash em and go. Toss them about like they were $10 hats! But never left home without them.

Perhaps that’s part of why a nice condition vintage Whippet now goes for stupid prices.

I think they just treated their hats like we’d treat an old jacket, toss it here, hang it there. When it wears out after 10 years I’ll buy a new one at any of the gazillion stores in town that sell them.
What size? What colour?

Getting them “just right” seems to be part of why we’re into old hats.
We’re not being obsessive….just picky…..Mrs Fred The Cat would disagree.

Fredthecat

 

[rgraham]

Yep, TCM movies are great for hat watching. They grab em, bash em and go. Toss them about like they were $10 hats! But never left home without them.

Perhaps that’s part of why a nice condition vintage Whippet now goes for stupid prices.

I think they just treated their hats like we’d treat an old jacket, toss it here, hang it there. When it wears out after 10 years I’ll buy a new one at any of the gazillion stores in town that sell them.
What size? What colour?

Getting them “just right” seems to be part of why we’re into old hats.
We’re not being obsessive….just picky…..Mrs Fred The Cat would disagree.

Fredthecat

They may have treated the hats in the movies like that, but in real life, a fine hat was a serious piece of your attire. You treated it with the respect that you intended to be treated. It wasn't only the hat you wore, but how you wore it.

 

[tonyb]

I think they just treated their hats like we’d treat an old jacket, toss it here, hang it there. When it wears out after 10 years I’ll buy a new one at any of the gazillion stores in town that sell them.
What size? What colour?

I do believe your version of how it was is closer to reality, Fred. I'm old enough (barely) to have some recollection of hats being, if not a part of every man's everyday attire, at least not at all unusual. My grandfather, for instance, routinely wore a lid well into the 1960s, as did many men of his generation. I don't recall those old cats regarding their hats as particularly precious. After all, "when it wears out after 10 years, I'll buy a new one at any of the gazillion stores in town that sell them." (But that was for the daily hats, though. They did indeed have their Sunday-going-to-meeting clothes, and many men had a hat or three in reserve for such special use.)

But then the years went by and there weren't a gazillion stores selling them. And those old guys went the way of all things. And those hats of theirs that didn't get sent to the Goodwill or the landfill went to the attic, where some of them remain to this day (yes, we're all still on the lookout) and from which some eventually found their way to secondhand and vintage shops and, more recently, eBay. That's how people like us ended up with so many nice old hats with other people's grandfathers' initials embossed on the sweatbands.