EVERYTHING IS COMING UP INDIANA JONES

Even though the price of oil is the hot topic of the week (and the Barack-Hillary knockout) we thought you might want to read this week’s hat article from AP.

Indiana Jones and the Hat Business

On life support in the early 1980s, the hat business was carried on the shoulders of the early Indiana Jones movies. Hat merchants are very happy Indy is back.

The Village Hat Shop opened its doors on May 2, 1980 so they have been around the hat business during the entire Indiana Jones phenomena. "It is not an overstatement to say that Harrison Ford's fedora entirely revitalized our industry," says Fred Belinsky owner and founder of the four-store California retail chain as well as http://www.VillageHatShop.com.

"Not only is the Indiana Jones hat the best selling headwear both online and in our stores, but men's fedoras in general -- a very important segment of the hat business today -- can trace its resurgence to the first movie in 1981."

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Belinsky describes how the western business carried the industry nationally for a while (those old enough will remember the movie Urban Cowboy, or the TV show Dallas, or the western-themed club scene in the late 1970s) but one day in the early 1980s, it abruptly ended. "We were in a hole again.

After 20 years of decline -- since President Kennedy decided that he liked his hair better than his hat -- the slight blip upwards that came from cowboy hats stopped on a dime. If you think that the fictional Indiana Jones saves the day on film, it ain't nothin' compared to what he's done for real life hat merchants."

As sellers of officially licensed Indiana Jones merchandise, the head staff of The Village Hat Shop was invited to a Sneak Preview of the new movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Albeit viewed through the lens of hat-centric movie goers, three reviews of the new film appear on the HAT BLOG: Everything Hats.

Indy's hat has become iconic. The movie starts and ends with the hat, which makes hat merchants giddy. Bruce Zales, designer of Jaxon Hats a hip men's line: "We've been anticipating this movie for many months. By and large, popular culture has been ambivalent about hats for almost a half-century. Every industry should get its day in sun. It's our turn." No word yet from the whip industry.

By the way, this is what Fred Belinksy had to say on his blog about hats and the movie's influence.

"These Indiana Jones movies - the first one was released in 1981 - have meant more to the hat business in the last half-century than any other event on the planet. The only thing that comes close is the relatively new realization that hats serve an enormous benefit in protecting people from the harmful effects of the sun.

Imagine the direct relevance of hats to one's health has had less impact on this industry than a series of movies! Indy's hat is a modern-day icon. Its current influence on the hat buying public is nothing short of phenomenal. The current popularity of fedoras can be traced to the first Indiana Jones movie when Indy, played by Harrison Ford, wears a safari style fedora, where the medium-to-large brim is turned down in the front and the back.

The hat business has become emblematic of the man. After that, all fedora styles took off. Today’s fashionistas like their fedoras with stingy (short) brims - very much on the other side of the fedora brim length continuum from Indy. Whether they know it or not, these young hipsters are the direct fashion descendents from Indiana Jones' Hat."

For a cool look, put a lid on it
Robert C. Lopez

Credit: Jerry Wolford/News & Record

Darrick Allred, in his hat room in his Greensboro home, wears a gray Royal Stetson pinch-front fedora from 1942 that originally belonged to his wife's grandfather.

The fedora is gracing the big screen again this weekend in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

But the hat, along with other retro styles such as the newsboy, the bowler and the porkpie, is also providing cover for a generation of men once accustomed solely to the logo-emblazoned ball cap.

"It's something that's very macho, very Frank Sinatra, very Rat Pack," said Diane Feen, editor of industry newsletter Hat Life. "And they're also very elegant. The fedora is fluid. The lines are fluid, from the crown all the way down. They can make someone look very dressed up."

After several decades in the closet, the men's hat is re-emerging as a hipster fashion statement.

Open the pages of any celebrity gossip magazine and you're likely to spot a photo of Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp or Joel Madden sporting a piece of classic headwear. Some men don't go out unless they're wearing a hat.

"It can be casual, it can be formal. But any time that a man wants to look like a gentleman and have a little bit more of a debonair appearance, they put on a hat," said 32-year-old Darrick Allred, who has a wall covered in hats at his Greensboro home. "And it makes you stand out in the crowd a little bit."

Until about 50 years ago, a man was not considered properly dressed unless he had a hat. Hatters are quick to blame President John F. Kennedy and his bare-headedness for the demise of the hat as a men's fashion accessory. But contrary to popular belief, the 35th president did not go hatless on Inauguration Day in 1961, and photos show him wearing a silk top hat before and after his swearing-in. Nevertheless, by the mid-1960s, men with hats were a disappearing breed.

"A lot of young people thought hats were kind of old-fashioned," said Eric Boone, a wardrobe consultant for the Minneapolis-based Roepke Public Relations, who helps clients look stylish for televised interviews. "They thought that 'Oh, that looks too much like what my dad would wear.' It wasn't cool or hip to wear a hat. And by the 1970s, they had just kind of gone out."

The fedora made a brief comeback in the early 1980s with the release of the original Indiana Jones flick "Raiders of the Lost Ark," Boone said in a telephone interview, but the current hat trend has its roots in the music scene, particularly the hip-hop genre where hats never really went away.

Fedoras also are a natural extension for men who grew up wearing ball or knit caps and now want something a bit more sophisticated to place on their pates.

"A baseball cap is good for hanging out with the guys," said Brian Radko, product development manager for New Era Cap Company, which makes a line of fedoras and other classic hats. "But as they get older and start getting more income, they want something they can wear when they go out at night."

Many fedoras, including those made by New Era, can be had for between $25 and $40.

Chuck Cotton , owner of the now-closed Greensboro institution Bob's Hatters, said a hat also is good for drawing attention.

"It changes your whole appearance," he said. "When you see yourself in one, you just feel good about it. And you go out, people say, 'Man, that's a cool hat you got on. Where'd you get that hat?'"

Allred has been a hat enthusiast since he was 6 and began collecting when he 18 while going through a "cowboy phase." Now, he runs a hat-cleaning business out of his home, and in his office he has a couple dozen hats, including a Guatemalan palm leaf sombrero and a beaver-skin English bowler. Many of them have come from estate sales or auctions. His most treasured headpieces, though, are a pile of fedoras he found in his wife's grandfather's attic.

A fan of classic crime films, he said hats can convey "a very strong, profound presence."

"You watch the old movies, most of the main characters seemed to wear some sort of hat, whether it was a derby or bowler or a fedora," he said. "It was just something you had to have. It was part of your suit. And now, it seems like so many younger kids, people in their 20s, are picking that up."

Allred is also a big fan of the Indiana Jones movies, one reason being, of course, Harrison Ford's signature fedora.

"If I see a movie that's out there where the main character or co-star sports a hat, I'll be more likely to purchase it," he said. "And I remember when I was 10 or 11 years old seeing a replica Indiana Jones hat at (the now-closed) Carolina Circle Mall. It had a little pin on the bow ribbon.

It was so expensive back then, as it is now (official replicas can run upward of $300), and I still don't have one. But I'm going to get one."

Robert C. Lopez - 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com