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Inspired by the hat worn by JOHNNY DEPP as John Dillinger in "Public Enemies"
"Now nobody get nervous, you ain't got nothing to fear. You're being robbed by the John Dillinger Gang. That's the best there is! These few dollars you lose here today are going to buy you stories to tell your children and great-grandchildren. This could be one of the big moments in your life; don't make it your last!"
Like so many of Depp's characters, and the hats he wears, this fedora has already amassed an almost mythical notoriety. The image of Depp as Dillinger holding his sub-machine gun and wearing this hat, has taken its place in our Cinema lexicon. And its special qualities were not lost on anyone, from the very moment he put it on during the production. In fact, while filming on location in Oshkosh , WI, a local boy, aged 11, told Depp he loved his fedora hat and would love more than anything to have one just like it. Depp told the boy he would see what he could do about that. After filming finished, Depp sent the boy the hat in the mail!
As John Dillinger himself said: "All my life I wanted to be a bank robber. Carry a gun and wear a mask. Now that it's happened... I sure am happy!" Yes, these larger-than-life icons knew how to live, and what made them happy. Order a custom made "Dillinger" today, and put a crocked smile on your face as well!
PRAISE FOR "THE DILLINGER":
"Wow, wow, wow! Just received my "Dillinger". What an absolutely stunning hat. From the hatband to the black & gold silk/satin lining... Everything about the hat is spot on! It looks like it just stepped out of the 1930s. Crown height, brim width, classic bash, it's just perfect. I am more than impressed & incredibly pleased: I'm yet to take it off! Once again, many thanks for creating a most wonderful article of head wear. Like I always say..... A Baron hat isn't just a hat, it's THE HAT!
The process begins with finding raw material. Optimo has a worldwide exclusive on sustainably sourced Canadian silver beaver felt from a supplier in Portugal and each year releases various
colors and weights for limited-edition collections. “Beaver is the ultimate fur to felt for a smooth-finish hat because of its tightness and feel,” Thompson says. “Traditionally, underbelly [fur] is known as the best of the best because the color is clearer and more vibrant once it’s dyed.” The fine fur is felted—a time-honored technique that binds the fibers together and produces a bell-shaped hat body—at the mill before being shipped to Chicago.
The next step, called blocking, creates the initial structure. An inverted hat body is placed into a 1940s blocking machine that Thompson sourced from Germany. The material is then steamed, and a domed mold called a hat block is plunged into the felt, forcing it into the desired size and shape.
The blocked hat body is put through a secondary blocking, called decatizing, in which it’s steamed again and then slowly “baked” in a decatizing machine. “I would liken it to a curing of the fabric,” Thompson says. “This process makes the felt more resistant to shrinkage and prevents the shape from being knocked out of it. Just to do that step is very expensive and requires a lot of additional molds.”
The hat body is lined up on a rack and left to rest for a few days in a climate-controlled room before going to surface finishing. Most are finished smooth, the felt shaved with fine abrasive papers, as well as conditioned and polished. Finally, a high-suction machine vacuums any dust particles from the pores of the hat. “A lot of the time you don’t see the problems until you begin surface finishing, because they’re beneath the outer layer of felt that’s being worked,” explains Thompson. “Those can be clumps of fibers that weren’t uniformly felted or color inconsistencies.” Finding such flaws means the hat must be scrapped.
Once the hat passes inspection, it’s off to the trimming room. Here, a sheepskin sweatband is snipped to size and installed with a vintage Singer sewing machine. (Thompson finds the older models to be of higher quality.) The brim is cut, and the edges are either welted, bound, curled, or, in some cases, left raw. The treatment affects not only the look but also how the brim snaps and holds.
Next comes the flanging bench, where the headwear is flipped upside down into a donut-looking mold called a flange—which corresponds to the desired size, brim width, and brim shape—and placed under a large, heated bag of sand. “It’s kind of an ingenious way to iron the brim,” Thompson says. “It sits under there for several minutes, and then we let it sufficiently cool.”
The piece is returned to the trimming room, where a satin lining is sewn inside the crown and a ribbon and bow are secured to the outside. “Most of our ribbon, we have specially produced for us,” Thompson says. “We’re fortunate enough to have a lot of vintage ribbon that was made in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s—the quality was more refined then.”
Lastly, the hat undergoes a secondary flanging before arriving at the hatter’s bench for final finishing, including creasing, polishing, and gentle steaming to relax the fibers and bring out the colors. Each piece is thoroughly inspected before being placed into its hat box and shipped.
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