A modern Australian shearer.

Upon seeing my last attempt, an actor friend exclaimed in a faux British accent, “Instant Character!” That it is. A moustache carries with it a certain je ne sais quois, a devil-may-care attitude with which I’m wont to ally myself anyways.

You know how I feel about bowlers, or as our friends Down Under call them, derbies.

For more of Australia’s earliest settlers, see The Powerhouse Museum’s Flickr.

The company began life in 1947 when F.M. “Bunny” Allen moved from his native England to Kenya and began his professional hunter/safari guide service. Allen was one of the last great gentlemen hunters of Africa, and led safaris for everyone from Prince Aly Khan to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales to Mick Jagger. He is responsible for guiding the largest luxury safari of all time, leading a cast and crew of 500+ for John Ford’s 1953 masterpiece Mogambo.

When I visited their New York location on Madison Avenue, I marveled at the quality craftsmanship and selection. I’ve featured their version of the pelican belt in a post about casual belts, but theirs is a collection of all things essential to a well-traveled, continental man. Think Denys Finch Hatton; think Ernest Hemingway; think Sir Edmund Hillary; think of any member of The Explorers Club. Better yet, don’t think. Do.

For more on F.M. Allen, visit their website.

This summer, while audiences root for bad guy John Dillinger, famed Chicago bank robber, as he lives larger than life in Michael Mann’s latest blockbuster Public Enemies, I’ll be ogling his hats.

When Graham Thompson of Chicago’s Optimo Hats was approached by costumer Colleen Atwood to provide headwear for the films’ leads, Mr. Thompson came armed with books filled with period photos of men sporting high-crowned, short-brimmed fedoras.

“… but she and her team, they were ready. They did their homework.”

Christian Bale plays FBI manhunter Melvin Purvis.

Thompson made 75 hats for the film and several additional fedoras for Mr. Depp, “a real hat guy,” he’s quick to differentiate. “There are hat people and there are not hat people…”

“… but it doesn’t take a connoisseur to tell the difference between a good hat and a bad hat.”

Put an Optimo hat in your hands and the difference in quality is obvious.

Thompson, 37, fell in love with hats in high school. While studying Japanese at Chaminade University-Honolulu, he grew an appreciation for the Panama Hat. Depending on the quality of wheat fiber, the strength and size of the weave, a well-made Panama can go for thousands of dollars.

Straw Monte Christis as they arrive from Ecuador.

While kids his age spent their summers flipping burgers, Thompson apprenticed with renowned Chicago hat man Johnny Tyus of Johnny’s Hat Shop. “And right after I graduated, Johnny told me he was retiring.”

A father and son arrive for a fitting.

Not one to let an opportunity pass, he bought Tyus’ machines and offered to continue to learn from him for as long as he was willing to teach.

“I would show him things I thought were neat. Tricks, refining techniques, and he’d just say, ‘No.’”

Thompson was fortunate to learn from a real South Sider. The men of Chicago’s South Side are serious about their hats. “It’s a real hat culture. Drive around here in the winter – Cadillac’s zipping around and you’ll see all the hat silhouettes inside.”

“It’s a feel. For them it’s about the flip of the hat, a certain roll, a certain shape. The look of the hat is key.” He hammered the point home saying, “They’ll tell ya, ‘Do the hat right.’”

“Give it a tilt like this.”

And that they do. Thompson bought a two flat on the southwestern edge of the city in the Beverly neighborhood. Living above the shop for a number of years, he’d make hats all day, only traipsing upstairs to sleep and eat.

“Yeah, it was hard for a long time. Get up, make hats, go to sleep. Get up, make hats, go to sleep.”

Eventually moving out, Thompson’s now finishing a major expansion of the shop. The business is growing, yet he’s loath to allow it to outgrow their space.

“We don’t want to over-market,” and rightly so. Each hat is made by hand, a labor-intensive process, and they make no compromise for quality.

A small collection of grosgrain ribbon ready for hatbands.

“We’re continuing a craft that’s gone unchanged since 30s. The art form has been slowly dying ever since.”

Seamstress Lucia Tovar attaches the sweatband to a Monte Christi.

It takes an excellent craftsman to make a handmade hat, and even then, machines often do a better job. “With proper machinery, there’s no way you can say it’s better to do that by hand.”

This machine sands the brim’s edge as it spins the hat.

As practice, Thompson would make hats using simply a stick, a rope, and a steam pot. He explains that this helped to learn the properties of felt. But he’s quick to note that a machine which has perfectly ground the hat with pressure at all the same points is always better than a hand iron that has distributed the heat unevenly.

“It’s handmade not homemade,” a catchphrase if ever there was one.

Thompson travels to Monte Cristi, Ecuador three times a year to buy their Panamas, all of which are made with European straw.

Along with the felts, most of the machines, often acquired when factories close, are European.

Kevin Fitzpatrick, weekend shopkeep, shows off a new felt.

All their felt is made to their exacting specifications. “It took a while for us to grow big enough to fill felt orders so we could do optimal quality.”

Now, they limit their production to twenty colors a year. “Although we reran the oxblood Depp wears in the film.”

It’s a cool color. In certain lights it looks black in others dark brown.

Not just any Buddy, that’s the signature of regular customer, blues legend, Buddy Guy.

“We play a lot of jazz and old rhythm & blues in the shop. One of the cool things about working here, we cater to that crowd.”

Jazz Masters, Blue Smiths, and Public Enemy Number One. All in a day’s work.

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For film of Graham in action, check out The Chicago Sun-Times.

Additional photos provided by Universal Pictures and EKH. For more of my visit to Optimo Hats, see my Flickr account.

If you’re in Chicago this weekend, stop by the West Loop for the Chicago Antique Market, an indoor air-conditioned and outdoor European-style urban antique market located in the historic and distinctive Randolph Street Market District at the beautiful Beaux Arts Plumbers Hall complex at 1340 W. Washington Street.

I visited the market during its opening weekend, and while I do love the Brooklyn Flea, the size, scope, and number of relative bargains found on Randolph Street dwarf fair Brooklyn’s quaint – and far more expensive – little market.

I love wood racquets.

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Julie Fernstrom of Andersonville’s English Cottage and Brimfield, named for the tartan as well as the famous Massachusetts flea market. She has a healthy stock of sumptuous plaid blankets and re-purposed mid-century modern furniture, much of which she’s reupholstered borrowing materials from her collection of blankets.

The Brimfield Tartan in all its splendor

This desk chair has been re-upped with a military-issue Faribault Mills blanket.

Not to be outdone a vendor from Madison, Wisconsin offered this Swiss Army Blanket Bench.

Ditka, Not a Shopper

For seventy more photos of my trip to the Chicago Antique Market, visit Flickr. And while there’s still time, make your way to the West Loop for some terrific bargains.

Note the faded billboards for my beloved Stetson Hats, “The Hat of the West,” and for now defunct H Bar C California Ranchwear, named for pre-war era tailors Halpern and Christenfeld, makers of riding clothing.

Pendleton, perhaps best known as the origin of the wool plaid shirt, has been outfitting everyone from brawniest outdoorsmen to the most mellifluous musicians for eighty-five years.

The Beach Boys, once known as The Pendletones, perhaps the best clothing-inspired band name

Look for Pendleton, arriving soon to Sweden’s Très Bien Shop, and in finer American outfitters year-round.

Additional images c/o A Restless Transplant and Flickr.

Jam-packed with selections from all plaidout favorites Gitman Bros., Alexander Olch, and 3Sixteen, not to mention that Billykirk’s Chris and Kirk Bray and shirtmaker Alexander West will be on hand customizing their products, it will be the perfect place beat the heat, maybe even crush a High Life.

They’ll be the first to offer Hattan, an exciting new project from the designers of Hickey. It’s a collection of very stylish, handmade baseball caps. Note the real bone button. Make mine a black watch, please.

Image c/o Elissa Wiehn.

I’m most excited to see what remains of One Trip Pass, Ned Martel and Jay Carroll’s selections from their road trip through the American West. Jay tells me, “There’s even some stuff we edited from OTP because it wasn’t ‘high desert during the summer of 1976′ enough.”

Here are some photos I took of One Trip Pass when first it opened.

There are still some pairs of the Kanvas by Katin boardshorts they had made exclusively for OTP. For more, see what Michael wrote about them last month, ACL.

Santa Maria Novella’s Nostalgia Cologne, a snakeskin wallet, US Naval Academy Survival Guide, a cactus, and, of course, Modelo Especial.

Post-shotgun.

Black Combs & Crocodiles (also the name of my first album).

Pop Up Flea, 201 Mulberry St. NY, NY
Fri, 4-8; Sat & Sun 11-7
For more information, e-mail popupflea@gmail.com.

“Hook me up with a suit. That’s amazing.” – Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show, 24 June 2009.

If I were to describe anything as amazing, it probably wouldn’t be the Nudie suits Tweedy & Co. wore on The Tonight Show last night. That said, as previously mentioned, I do love their suits, particularly Jeff’s red Sushi Bar jacket which features the Korean Cat of Prosperity, bassist Stirrat’s nautical number (if I’m not mistaken, that’s a square knot on his left shoulder, bad ass), and lead guitarist Nels Cline’s Day of the Dead duds, all skulls and bones.

For more of Robert Loerzel’s photos from last year’s Lollapalooza, visit his site, Underground Bee.

For Nels’ thoughts on the suits, check out his interview in Rolling Stone.

“People freaked out. You know, they’re made to look good up close and far away, glittering the whole time.” – Nels Cline, Rolling Stone, 15 September 2008

Visit Valet Magazine for the latest in what it means to be a man in the modern age.

The sack in question is pictured below.On the reverse: