Raiders Turn Poet - Deep Sable Rabbit

• Felt: Deep Sable pure rabbit fur felt*
• Brim: Dimensional flanged brim
• Ribbon: 1½ inch dark brown vintage galloon ribbon-band with screen accurate Raiders bow style
• Interior: Branded gold liner & soft leather sweatband
• Bash: Handbashed Raiders style (with the 'Raiders Turn' put in)

All our hats are handcrafted to order or for stock from only the finest sustainably sourced materials. We work closely with our fur felt hood suppliers in Portugal, choosing only the highest quality fur felt which is ordered to our exacting specifications.

All our felts are preshrunk during the blocking stage to avoid later shrinking as much as possible. Our rabbit is pounced to a smooth finish and a coating of protector is applied to prolong its resistance to the elements. Whilst not as dense as our beaver fur felts, our rabbit makes a very fine quality fur felt hat.

Our Indiana Jones styles include our true grosgrain Indy ribbon which is accurate to the original film hats, still produced to the same specifications for us and woven by the very same machines.

Avoid handling your hat by the crown as you could wear out the front pinch. Holding your hat by the brim is the best way to handle any hat. We advise against wearing your hat in heavy rain. If your fur felt hat does get wet, shake off any excess water and allow to dry naturally placed brim faced down at room temperature. Never force dry your hat using any form of heat source. If required, use your hands to gently reinforce the shaping of the crown and brim. When completely dry, lightly brush to clean.

*Our 2020 Deep Sable Rabbit Fur Felt has been redesigned as a result of our ongoing research and development mission to bring you the very finest and most accurate products to the originals as possible. The felt has been matched for colour, weight and density with a collection of pristine vintage Raiders era HJ Poets made by Richard Swales himself. This new felt brings us closer than ever before to the original felt, the perfect combination of quality, longevity and floppiness.

All Poet hats are created on straight sided graduated blocks scaled up and down proportionally from an average open crown height of 5½ inches at a size 59cm. This ensures that no matter what size you order, the proportions of the hat remain in balance.

Made with the men's left sided bow as standard as in this display option, please specify if you would prefer it on the women's side on the right.

We ship worldwide.

We calculate delivery costs based on the weight of each product and country to which the item is to be posted.

Due to the exclusive nature of our products we do not stock large quantities. This is a pre-order product, shipped within approximately 6 months from date of order. If you would like to enquire about the current expected lead time for your order, please email enquiries-hj@herbert-johnson.co.uk.

Delivery time from date of dispatch is dependent on location; typically 2-4 working days for UK orders and 3-5 working days for overseas orders (depending on customs clearance and location).

Our hats are carefully packaged in simple white hat boxes within a cardboard postal box.

Caps will be carefully packaged in a high quality cap box within a cardboard postal box.

Creating the hat of a hero.

Before hatmakers Herbert Johnson joined the Swaine Adeney Brigg group, it was situated at 13 Old Burlington Street in London. In 1980 two American gentlemen came into the shop and introduced themselves as Mr Steven Spielberg and Mr Harrison Ford.

Mr. Spielberg announced that he was on the brink of making an adventure film with Harrison Ford as the central figure (Raiders of the Lost Ark) and revealed that the main character Indiana Jones would be wearing a hat which would be pivotal to the character and the plot. Herbert Johnson was delighted at having been chosen to help design what was to become the famous iconic Indy hat.

It was our tall stovepipe classic poet style that was chosen as the foundation for what was to become the iconic raiders hat. The Poet is a wide brim fur felt hat with a tall straight sided crown, made by Herbert Johnson since the 1890’s and has always been deemed ageless. A shade of brown rabbit fur felt called ‘sable’ was chosen and some modifications were made to the poet hat to create its character & to facilitate filming.

The Indy hat was made distinctive by reducing the brim width only on the sides creating a dimensional brim. By shaping the brim into an ovoid, it gave protection to the eyes & neck whilst reducing the sides helped with camera angles. The explorer look was enhanced by snapping the front brim down and we altered the original ribbon from 50mm to 39mm to make the tall crown appear even taller.

The re-worked and subtly modified Herbert Johnson Poet hat gave Mr Spielberg the look he had envisioned for Harrison Ford's character of Indiana Jones and the 'Indy' hat was born.

Apart from the original Indiana Jones hat for Harrison Ford, we made a further 45 'Indy' hats of assorted sizes, some for Mr. Ford and the remainder for the film stunt actors on the set of Raiders of The Lost Ark. We were also commissioned to provide all the hats for the following 2 sequels.

The tremendous success of the Indiana Jones films have secured their place in popular culture forever and just like our original poet, the hero Indy Poet is ageless and enjoys an enduring popularity to this day.