A pork pie hat is a simple object. Flat crown, a circular crease pressed round the top edge, a short brim that turns up the whole way round. That is the entire design. And yet no other piece of headwear arrives carrying as much argument, because the thing has been claimed in turn by American vaudeville, by Kingston sound systems and by a record label run out of a flat in Coventry.
Of all the hats we sell, the pork pie is the one people get wrong most often. Bought too small. Bought in the wrong material for the month. Then put down brim first, week after week, until it splays into a saucer.
The Flat Crown and Where the Name Comes From
The defining feature is the telescope crown. The top is flat and a circular crease runs round its edge, so the crown looks like it could push down into itself. On most modern versions the crown stands somewhere between two and three inches, a good deal shorter than a trilby, and the brim is narrow with a snap turn all the way round.
The name is completely literal. A raised English pork pie, the hot water crust sort you would buy from a butcher in Melton Mowbray, has that exact profile of a flat lid sitting inside a standing rim. British women wore hats in the shape during the 1860s and the comparison stuck. Plenty of people still use pork pie and trilby as though they were two words for one object. They are not. A trilby has a tapered crown with a lengthways dent and a pinch at the front, and putting the two side by side settles it in a second.
Buster Keaton Made His Own
Keaton wore the pork pie through the silent era and he built them himself. He would buy a decent Stetson, cut the crown down flat, then stiffen the brim with sugar water so it held its shape when he fell off a moving train. By the time he made The General in 1926 the hat had become as much his signature as the face that never moved.
The American thread runs on from there into jazz. Lester Young wore one on the bandstand through the 1940s, and when Charles Mingus wrote Goodbye Pork Pie Hat for Mingus Ah Um in 1959 he was writing an elegy for Young, not a note about millinery.
Kingston, Rude Boys and Prince Buster
Jamaican rude boys took the hat up in the mid 1960s, and the route was the same one that brought sharp tailoring to Kingston, which is American cinema and American records landing in a port town. The look was a short tight suit, a thin tie, dark glasses and the hat worn level. Prince Buster, born Cecil Bustamente Campbell in Kingston in 1938, gave the whole posture a soundtrack with Al Capone in 1964. It reached the British charts three years later, just as British skinheads started paying attention. The tailoring was local work. Kingston shops cut those suits short in the body and narrow through the leg, taking what men had seen in imported films as a starting point and then pushing it further, so the hat sat on top of a look that was already fully formed before anybody outside Jamaica photographed it.
One correction, though. The hat was never the uniform in Jamaica that the revival later made it look. Photographs from the period show plenty of men bareheaded, or in a wider brimmed felt that owes more to Chicago than to any ska cliche. It became shorthand afterwards, once British bands needed a picture that read instantly. If you want the sound rather than the costume, our ska clothing and Trojan Records ranges are where that side of it lives. The one detail that does hold up across the photographs is the angle. Level, low on the forehead, never tipped back, because a hat tipped back reads as relaxed and nobody in those pictures is trying to look relaxed.
Felt, Straw and Brim Width
Two materials do most of the work. Wool felt holds a crease, takes a knock and earns its place from October onward. Straw, usually a woven paper braid or a proper Panama weave, is a summer hat and looks daft under a Yorkshire sky in February. Nobody here would put straw on after September, and a heavy felt at an outdoor all dayer in July is just as poor a call.
| Material | Typical brim | Season | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wool felt | Two inches | October to March | Brushes clean and reshapes with steam |
| Fur felt | Two inches | October to March | Softer hand and better in rain, costs more |
| Woven straw | Two to two and a quarter inches | May to September | Cracks instead of bending if you force it |
| Paper braid | One and three quarter inches | May to September | Light and cheap, marks easily when wet |
Brim width is where personal taste earns its keep. Under an inch and a half the hat starts to read as a novelty item. Over two and a half inches it has stopped being a pork pie and become something your grandad wore to the races. Two inches is the middle ground, and a slightly wider brim flatters a broad face far more than the internet will tell you.
Coventry and the 2 Tone Years
When 2 Tone came out of Coventry in 1979 the pork pie came with it. The Specials, The Selecter and Madness all put one on stage, and within a year you could not get through a ska night in Britain without half the room wearing one. Set it against a tonic suit and a pair of polished brogues and the reference lands before you have opened your mouth.
Getting the Size Right
Head size barely shifts after your twenties, so measure once, write it in your phone and stop guessing. Run a soft fabric tape round the head about an eighth of an inch above the eyebrows and just above the ears, keeping it level the whole way round. Snug, not tight. A hat that grips will leave a red line across your forehead by the second pint. Heads also swell a little in heat, so a hat that felt right in a cold February can feel a size down at an outdoor gig in July.
- Use a fabric tape, not a steel rule, and measure over bare hair instead of a beanie.
- Take the reading twice and go with the larger of the two figures.
- Check that number against the maker's own chart, because a 59 from one brand is not a 59 from the next.
- If you land between two sizes, take the bigger one and pack the sweatband out with a foam sizing strip.
Storing a Hat So It Survives the Decade
Rest it upside down on the crown. The brim is the part that distorts, and a year of putting the hat down brim first will flatten the snap out of it permanently. Keep it away from direct sunlight, because felt fades unevenly across the top and straw goes brittle at the edges. If it gets properly soaked, let it dry at room temperature well away from a radiator, then brush the felt anticlockwise with a soft brush to lift the nap back up.
Pick it up by the brim as well. Every time you grab the top of the crown you push the crease out of true, and after enough of that the flat top stops being flat. A hat box helps. A carrier bag in the boot of a car does the opposite. One last thing on the sweatband. When it goes hard and shiny with wear, wipe it with a barely damp cloth and let it dry flat before the hat goes away, because dried sweat is what eventually rots the stitching holding it in.
Pork Pie Hat FAQ
Short answers to the pork pie questions that come up most.
- What is the difference between a pork pie hat and a trilby? The pork pie has a flat top with a circular crease running round the edge of the crown. A trilby has a tapered crown with a lengthways dent and a pinch at the front. They are two separate shapes rather than two names for one hat.
- How do I work out my hat size? Run a fabric tape round your head roughly an eighth of an inch above the eyebrows and just above the ears, keeping it level. Compare it against the brand's own chart, because a 59cm from one maker is not always a 59cm from another.
- How should a pork pie hat sit on the head? Level, and low enough that the sweatband sits about a finger's width above the eyebrows. Tipped back it reads as fancy dress and it will slide off the first time you look up at something. The brim stays snapped down all the way round on a pork pie, so resist any urge to turn the front of it up.
- How do I reshape a felt hat that has been crushed? Hold it in the steam from a boiling kettle for a few seconds at a time, then work the crown crease back with your fingers while the felt is warm and soft. Leave it to dry resting on its crown. Do not soak it and keep the hairdryer away.
- Which brim width suits a bigger head? A larger head carries a two inch brim far better than a very narrow one, because a short brim on a wide crown only exaggerates the width. Try it on with the jacket you actually plan to wear it with.