John McHale didn’t just make enormous brown captoes, they also made something a bit sleeker as this pair shows. These are a bit later- note: McHale vs. John McHale, and probably date from the late ’50s/early ’60s. The Mad Men era.
You don’t see a lot of brown derbies these days. Lots of black ones survived, but the slightly more casual, slightly less common brown ones didn’t make it nearly as well. This is a modern one. Well- I say modern- but I consider any hat made from the mid ’70s on to be pretty modern. It’s soft like a homburg and has a homburg curl to the brim, not a derby curl. But the blocking is all bowler- too low to take a crease, so I guess that’s what it is.
This Royal Stetson homburg was made in the 1930s and has all those great deep ’30s imprints in the sweatband leather. It also bears a rare period sticker from New York’s famous “Stork Club”
Quite the fancy belted back on this one. A pleat runs from the top of the back all the way down. For whatever reason, someone removed the sleeve linings.
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