Types of Felt Hats: Names, Shapes and the American Styles
3 min read
Fifteen felt hat names, what distinguishes each one, and which of them turn up as crossword answers — because half the questions about hat names come from a grid.
Hat names describe the crown crease and the brim, and nothing else. Two hats in the same felt from the same maker are given different names purely on the basis of how they have been blocked and creased.
Soft felt hats
- Fedora — teardrop or centre crease, side dents, brim 6–8 cm snapped down at the front. Named after an 1882 play.
- Trilby — narrow brim, sharply upturned at the back, worn far back on the head. Named after the 1894 stage adaptation of the novel Trilby.
- Pork pie — flat crown top with a circular crease running round the rim of it, brim turned up all round.
- Diamond crown — a four-sided crease forming a diamond seen from above; common in mid-century American hats.
- Gambler — low oval crown, wide flat brim.
- Slouch — wide soft brim left uncurled, most familiar from military use.
Stiffened felt hats
- Homburg — single lengthways crown dent, no side dents, stiff brim curled evenly all round with a bound edge.
- Bowler (British) / derby (American) — hard domed crown, short tightly curled brim. Designed in 1849 as protective headgear for gamekeepers.
- Top hat — tall flat-topped cylinder, historically silk plush, now usually fur felt.
- Capotain — the tall conical "pilgrim" hat, effectively historical dress now.
The American styles
Several shapes are specifically American in origin, and "felt hat american" usually means one of these:
- Western / cowboy hat — the Stetson "Boss of the Plains" of 1865 was a plain 10 cm-brimmed, round-crowned fur felt hat that owners creased themselves. Everything from the cattleman to the Gus crease descends from it.
- Cattleman crease — a tall crown with one centre dent and two narrow side dents. The standard working crease.
- Open Road — a lower-crowned, 7 cm-brimmed western, worn by several US presidents. Halfway between a fedora and a cowboy hat.
- Pork pie — American in its modern jazz-associated form, though the name is older.
The phrase also gets used for provenance rather than shape: hats blocked in the United States from American-milled fur felt bodies, which is a small industry that still exists in Pennsylvania and Texas.
For the crossword solvers
Felt hats are crossword staples because the names are short and unusual. By length:
- 4 — TILE (dated slang for a hat), TOPI
- 5 — DERBY, BERET, TOQUE
- 6 — FEDORA, TRILBY, BOWLER, CLOCHE
- 7 — HOMBURG, STETSON, CAPOTAIN (8)
- 8 — SOMBRERO
If the clue reads "felt hat" with no further hint, FEDORA and TRILBY are the two to try first. If it specifies "stiff", go to BOWLER or HOMBURG. Beret and cloche are felt but usually clued as women's hats.
Women's felt hats
- Cloche — close-fitting bell shape, brimless or with a tiny downturned brim. The 1920s hat.
- Beret — soft flat round crown, no brim, usually wool felt.
- Breton — brim turned up evenly all round, framing the face.
- Picture hat — very wide flat brim, low crown.
The beret is the outlier in the list: flat-crowned, bandless and the only one most people also own a knitted version of, which is why it behaves so unexpectedly in felt — wool felt berets covers the difference.
All of them start life as the same blank. Felt hat blanks explains the cones, capelines and hoods a milliner blocks into any of the shapes above, and felt hats for men covers fit and sizing in detail.
Frequently asked questions
What is the American felt hat called?
The style most associated with America is the western hat, popularised as the Stetson "Boss of the Plains" from 1865. The Open Road, the cattleman crease and the pork pie are also American, and American-made hat bodies from firms like Winchester are still produced in Pennsylvania.
What is a felt hat in a crossword?
The usual answers are FEDORA (6), TRILBY (6), HOMBURG (7), BOWLER (6), DERBY (5), STETSON (7), BERET (5) and, for the general term, FELT itself. For four letters, try TILE, an old slang word for a hat.
What is the difference between a derby and a bowler?
None in shape. Bowler is the British name and derby the American one for the same hard, round-crowned felt hat with a short curled brim.
Which felt hat is the most formal?
The homburg, with its stiff, evenly curled brim and single crown dent. Below it come the fedora and then the trilby, which is the least formal of the three.
