Smithbilt Hats

As you walk in you can tell from the decades of pictures gracing the walls with gentleman, cowboys, nobles and famous people wearing Smithbilt hats that you are officially in five star quality territory… Not to mention simply the impressive array of fine hats. I came on a mission for a cowgirl hat and left with the perfect cowgirl hat fitted and banded just for me.
And it is indeed a nice hat; 2 weeks later I was at a country music festival with over 30 000 people and received many compliments. And just in case I needed further confirmation a set of cowboys in the ‘real gear’ were strolling by and one stopped in his tracks, looked at me and said, «Now fellows, that there is a nice hat.» That pretty much says it all.

Let me tell you to do something. Look at any archive footage or photographs of sports games played circa 1940 or 1950. Look at the crowd. Every single man is wearing a fedora and a suit. Gentlemen, this was once the garb with which we faced the world everyday. There was no room for childishness. No baggy jeans, no baseball caps (turned backwards like the wearer’s brain), and no skateboarding under any circumstances.
My grandfather was one of these men, and even when he was in his late ‘80s, he would never leave the house without a real hat, a manly fedora.
Smithbilt Hats deals in manly fedoras, and cowboy hats. All custom-​fitted, and made in-​house for customers. These don’t go cheap, but after my experience today, I will never consider wearing anything else.
I have been eyeing a real fedora for some time. I got used to the look of wearing a hat by purchasing a low-​level wool felt fedora online. It looked good on me. I felt it was time to make the look permanent. Perhaps even iconic.
Smithbilt Hats is iconic. You walk in, and you smell the rich scent of the felts and, the wood floors. You can hear the craftsmen chatting in the back. It’s an experience getting fitted into one of these babies. I settled on a coffee-​coloured fedora with a 2 ½ «brim. Luckily, my massive dome required some extra customizing that was done in the back of this marvelous workshop. As an aside, I decided to replace the hat’s ribbon to one more suiting my taste.
It’s an incredible place, and hopefully, not a dying one. The hats are solid stuff, made to last years. They are generational pieces that transcend trends, and marketing gimmicks.

Makers of the iconic Calgary White Hat, these guys build hats the same way they’ve always built hats: by hand, on blocks, with steam. The prices aren’t for the faint of heart – but that’s because we’ve become accustomed to cheap off-​shore hats built by machines that fit Small Medium or Large heads, which is certainly not how fine hats should be sized! The quality is tops, and if you’re lucky, they’ll take you in the back and let you experience a world of hat making that is truly a dying art.