THE LEAGUE OF THE RAT PACK BRIM: Stingy Lids Unite!

[Katt in Hat]

Put me in Coach! Just bought Stingy from Pilgrim.

Color is a dark green, slightly olive. A very tasteful color and one that will go with khakis, tan, olive, brown, or any earth tones.

The brim is 1 7/8", and has a very nice Cavanagh-style wrapped and stitched edge. The crown is about 4.5-5" tall. Interior is a dark green satin and there isn't a mark or stain on it. Size is clearly marked 7 1/4 "Extra long oval", and it's a very accurate 7 1/4 .

Pictured in our Classifieds Section. I have 2 other S.Bs. But this one takes the cake.

Am also a member since 2006 of The O.R. Society.

:fedora: The Farmer and the Cowboy should be Friends ! :cool2:

 

[Senator Jack]

Posted by Tommy Salieri

I actually wouldn't mind wearing a stingy brim. I'm just a little concerned over how goofy i'd look. What with my big ears, and all.

See? Now this is what I'm talking about. There comes a point, or rather there should come a point when a person understands his or her own composition and starts wearing clothes that work with that composition. Yes, you may be right Tommy, a stingy with larger ears may not be right. We'll have to dig up some photos of Der Bingle and see if he ever wore a stingy.

As for me, I had hair problems for years. I could never figure out why I never looked good in a rockabilly haircut. Not a huge pompadour, but just a regular rise in the front, then slicked toward the back. Then I realized that my chin is too short for my face, and that the rockabilly hair style was making my head top-heavy. Having settled that, a few years back I found a stylist that specializes in 50's cuts and (truthfully and oddly enough for this thread) I said, give me a Dean Martin haircut. Bang, that's what I got and that put paid to that.

Anyway, one really shouldn't allow him or herself to be dressed by what fashion dictates, and that's whether its current fashion or vintage fashion. Yeah, there are a lot of people who say a fedora isn't a fedora unless it's so many inches (who says size doesn't matter?) but in the end, who cares? You're not wearing a hat to be in a club - you're wearing it because you believe it to be part of who you are. You might as well look good in it.


Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Raindog]

I think big guys in stingy brims can work, but it depends what take they have on clothes.
If the man wants to look in perfect proportion in the clothes then rules apply which we all know about. However, if the man wears clothes to make a statement of some sort I think he can disregard all the rules and just do what he wants.
What does it matter if he's a cool jazz cat and is 6 foot 4 and 20 stone in weight? He should wear that hat with panash and grrrroooovvve!
I'm six 2 and about 280lb. I like both the wide brimmed fedora and the stingy brimmed. Both cool as can be.
I also love the rat pack suits with the thin ties and lapels. Wear it with pride and the hell with rules!


Jeff.

 

[PutALidOnIt]

...it's all in the crown...

I have a few <2" brims and IMHO the "look" is all in the taper of the crown, and the bash.

Ones with medium taper and a wide center crease with blunt front have the bluesy-jazzman look. Ones with a lot of taper and a sharper lines are more the "rat-pack" look, while a slight taper with Cavanaugh/Guild/Mode edge and a wide ribbon are 50's businessman. Minor taper, meduim ribbon, and a raw edge look very 50's "Dragnet" detective. Just my $0.02 worth...

 

[Senator Jack]

Posted by Raindog:
I think big guys in stingy brims can work, but it depends what take they have on clothes.

I keep on trying to find a pic of Jack Weston in 'The Thomas Crown Affair' but I never have any luck. Now there was a portly man who looked great in stingy milan straw with narrow tie.

As for a tall man, it seems to me that Lee Marvin's brims weren't that wide. I'm looking for a pic of him in "The Killers" If anyone has one, please post.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Magus]

See? Now this is what I'm talking about. There comes a point, or rather there should come a point when a person understands his or her own composition and starts wearing clothes that work with that composition. Yes, you may be right Tommy, a stingy with larger ears may not be right. We'll have to dig up some photos of Der Bingle and see if he ever wore a stingy.

Regards,

Senator Jack

Good point Senator,

As for me..I look great in the hats...but put me in the narrow legged suit, thin tie etc...and I start to look like a pencil....and not a good one! So for me the stingy is joined with a square bottom cocktail shirt, a pair of slacks or Dickies, perhaps my RayBans a nice set of euro shoes...Then with the optional and a Saphire Gin Gimlet, shaken served up..with two onions. More like the gang around Frank's compound playing cards by the pool.


It just works.

M

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I was Joey Bishop and decided that was OK as he is the only survivor of the pack besides Shirley McClain -- who was not included in the test, nor was Peter Lawford, for some reason.

I'd really be Shirley McClain, but will settle for Bishop.

I see a lot of women wearing what I call a stingy brim, but I think they are closer to bucket hats. I don't look good even in 2 inch brims. Have a nice rose-colored Stetson that is only two inches and it is so tall, I look like a Dickens character in it. I have to bash it down below 5 inches to look decent in it; the brim would look better on me if it were 2 1/2".

Luckily, fedoras come in all sizes of brims and crowns and pinches. We just need to try them all and see what fits our faces and our styles. As for "Indy" styles, I think there are a lot of folks on this website who love to wear fedoras that pre-date the Indy look by many years. And the Indy look was meant to closely resemble those fabulous 30's styles.

karol

 

[Senator Jack]

And no Sammy Davis either? What gives?

Regards,

SJ

 

[Aaron Hats]

It's all about perception (mostly of ourselves). Some people wear the same style clothes day in and day out. Try to show them something different and it's like you have two heads. We all have pre-conceived ideas about nearly everything in life. It's when you're open minded enough to look beyond those ideas when things can get fun.

Open your mind and see what’s out there.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Joey Bishop!?

I got Joey Bishop??? [huh]
Oh well. Maybe he was the most philosophical one in the group? More of a Zen kind of guy, as opposed to the more flamboyant members?

 

[gekisai29]

as the ad says...never follow. hats should relect you not the other guy

 

[art92101]

Senator, you are onto something: height & width ratios

The above is just BAD advice. I wrote about this in the narrow brim thread but I see it bears repeating.

For a shorter or slim man a 2" wide brim IS a wide brim - period. Larger than that and he looks goofy because the hat overshadows the man. Should a large man wear a tight fishnet shirt because that's the style of the shirt? NO! Same goes for the hat.

Look, if you don't like the stingy, that's fine, but please don't be so presumptuous as to to say that it isn't a classic or that it was just a fad. And please don't compare us to the Justin Timberlake crowd, because that's just showing ignorance. That's like the drunk girl who once said of me 'Hey look, it's Michael Jackson' because I was wearing a hat. If you want to realize how ignorant that remark was, just look at my pic on your left.

Regards,

Senator Jack

Sen. Jack, I think you are onto something in your comments. I have a slim build and find that some of the most beautiful hats i have bought were sort of too big for my face/ My vintage 2 3/4 brims look ok but the 2.5 and stingys look far better. i have also found that a wider brim on me looks better if the crown is not too high. 4 to 4.5 is tops. A five inch or plus just doesn't look right on me. I wonder if anyone has ever created an analytic tool to measure which hats look better on certain faces?

 

[Magus]

I wonder if anyone has ever created an analytic tool to measure which hats look better on certain faces?

Hey there Art. Someone had posted a link form an old hat company that had style examples based on build with drawings. I looked but didn't find it. But...its here somewhere.

M

 

[Mr_Misanthropy]

Hat Style

Is this the site you were talking about? It's the only one I know of with diagrams and such. I wouldn't go by it like a bible though. I am very thin and have a thin face, and while stingies look best on me, I can pull off other hats as well, just not with a huge brim. But that may just be personal taste.

 

[Senator Jack]

What's the brim and crown measurement on that hat, MM?

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Johnnysan]

Shameless plug...

For those of you, who, like me, appreciate vintage stingy brims, I just listed a few of mine for sale in the classifieds section. I hate to part with a couple of these, but lack of space is forcing my hand. Sorry if this post is a bit fftopic:, I'd just like to see them go to someone who'll enjoy them for what they are and take care of them!

 

[Mr_Misanthropy]

What's the brim and crown measurement on that hat, MM?

Regards,

Senator Jack

It's a 2" brim and a 4.5" crown. The hat is a vintage Portis. I really don't know much about it. The hatband says it's something called "Mello-Felt". I've never heard the term before. Sounds 70's unfortunately.. but it's a good hat. Here are some pics.

 

[Rundquist]

I say more power to anyone that can pull off a stingy brim. If they look good on you, I say wear em. Don’t ever let somebody (especially from this board) dissuade you from wearing what looks good, and or makes you feel good. Hats are made to be worn regardless of what era they came from and regardless of what you wear them with. At times this place feels like a board for costume wearers.

 

[Senator Jack]

MM, do you have a pic of yourself in the wider brim hat? I'm curious to see the comparison. I, myself, got rid of all my wider brim hats, and now I only wear 2 inchers for dress hats, and a 1 7/8" or 1 3/4" for casual. Whenever I see a larger vintage at an estate sale, I'll try it on for kicks, but it always just looks too damn big for me - even a 2 1/4" looks too big. But, conversely, I DO see how even the 1 7/8" looks smaller and that's only an 1/8" difference.

I don't know, perhaps I'm far too in tune with composition - how things just go, or don't go together. To me, that Portis looks exactly right for your size. I would have been quite surprised if you had said it was larger or even smaller than 2"

Observed by Rundquist:

At times this place feels like a board for costume wearers.

This is the very problem with vintage, R: the trap of looking like a costume. Perhaps this is the real reason why I don't wear wide brim hats. I dunno. It's possible they look exaggerated on me, for my size, and the exaggeration gives the impression of being larger than life, and thus, that I just came from central casting. The one thing I have noticed about my dress is that no one ever says I look like I'm going to costume party, they usually just say, 'you look like you've got someplace important to go.' Really, the last thing I want is to look like I'm trying too hard.


Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Mr_Misanthropy]

Actually, I don't even own any hats with over a 2" brim anymore. I've got a Borsalino on the way with a 2 3/8 brim on the way though. I used to own a couple, and I've tried several on, but I just prefer Stingies. I guess I'm a member of the League of the Rat Pack Brim. Although.. isn't that name kind of a mouthful? How about the Stingy Brigade?