Tall Top Hat

This tall top hat gives you extra presence.

This is near enough for me a stove pipe style top hat, perhaps to be a perfect stove pipe it needs the side of cylindrical crown more parallel and the brim flatter, but height wise its got the credentials.

Just look at images of Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Abraham Lincoln to see the difference.

Stove Pipe a sub category of top hat, also know as chimney pot hat, a very Victorian hat. 

 Like all good Victorians I need to check my steampunk containment device is still containing the fresh air that was put in it and the clock is set half past 1833.

Putting on My Top Hat

This is typical average height black wool top hat is about the most common top hat you will find.

 On this hat the brim is turned up and the crown while still the top cylinder tapers out towards the top.

Top hat can be taller or lower than this, the cylindrical crown can taper in, be straight or in the case of mad hatter style top hats taper out even more, the brim can be flat or turned up, all these are variations are top hats, some have sub type names others are just a tall top hat or low height top hat.

The black felt top hat like this one has been around since about 1900 for funeral services and still in use today.

I consider a average height top hat to be between 12 and 13 cm high.

Chow's Hood

This hood and total costume ensemble comes from Chows Emporium one of my favourite traders

In the photo above I'm wearing the costume to play a alien warrior in sci-fi larp system.

The Hood is large and interestingly decorated made of artificial leather and fur, the style is pure fantasy.

Pork Pie

Modern Pork Pie hats are defined by their crown which resembles the top a pork pie. 

I call this a modern Pie hat since other styles in history have also used this name.

I associate this hat with Gene Hackman in the French Connection.

Modern pork pie hats can be made from felt, straw, tweed, leather or like this one a stiff hessian like material. They always have similar proportions to the one I'm wearing, i.e. a small brim which can be flat or curled and upright crown, with the pork pie top.

Smart Trilby

This smart grey trilby I purchased in a hat shop in Whitby.

What is the difference between a fedora & trilby, its dam confused out there even the experts contradict each other. 

From what I can see its basically comes down to the size of the brim, big brim (3" or more ) Fedora, small brim  (less than 3") Trilby, although you will find many hats that cross the 3" border both ways.

This hat has a gutter down the crown, a pinched front and kettle curl around the brim

Renaissance Hat

This hat is sometimes called a Muffin hat or cap, its of the same family as a modern chef hats, a popular lower class Renaissance period hat (15th to 17th Century Europe)

Made from basic usually lightweight fabric with no natural stiffness, with a access fabric sewn to 20 to 50cm wide headband that fits tightly around the head.

A very simple and easy to produce hat, the headband can sometimes be decorated.

This hat has no stiffened brim unlike renaissance flat caps or cow pat hats

I grabbed this off my friend Dave just as he was about to trade it, the hat did not make it to the bring and buy. 

South American General

This hat made me think of some South American Military General, but it is probably nothing of the sort

Its some form of military field cap but from what army I can't say as it was found at second hand market

I've scrolled through hundreds of images of hats trying to pin it down, but when you don't know one military from another finding the correct place to look is hard.

The badge is red white red horizontal stripe which I thought might make it Austrian, but that does not appear to be the case.

The buttons at the front should undo to provide a way holding the cap on in windy weather, but in this case they seem to have a purely decorative function.