Kentucky Smith_® SE – Cocoa

Kentucky Smith_® may not be as famous as that Jones guy from across the river in Indiana, but he wears a much cooler hat.

There are other differences. Kentucky Smith_® maintains a tropical state of mind at all times, in all places. Almost like a religion. Makes Jimmy Buffett look like Nanook of the North.

In Tibet, Kentucky’s unusual wardrobe choices won him the awed respect of local lamas, who could clearly see the challenges of white linen and vintage rayon at 18,000 feet. Very Zen.

Naturally, he always wears a Panama hat.

The Kentucky Smith _® SE “Cocoa” is his choice for serious adventures in outrageous places. Places where a blackberry is still something to eat.

And in the city at night. He loves to wear one of his been-through-hell Kentucky Smith_® SE hats when he parties. Chick magnet. Tell her the A1 Sauce stain on your brim is blood. From the Congo in ’03. Don’t say whose. Be brave.

Look at the photos. You can see for yourself you’ll be in the middle of some sort of adventure within an hour of putting it on. You’ll be the one whose hat everyone envies.

Tip Choose adventure partners with much larger or much smaller heads.

Warning When your Kentucky Smith _® hat arrives, don’t open the box! First, gas up your car, go to the ATM, put your attorney’s business card in your pocket, leave a note.

Okay, you can put it on now.

You may be mere minutes away from knowing exactly what Warren Zevon had in mind when he sang “Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money.”

Classic Fedora SE – Cocoa

My most popular style (Classic Fedora) is also available in a Safari Edition. Yes, tickertape parades would be in order were it not for modesty and a sense of environmental responsibility. This is a hat you need to put on the short list.

Why would you want the Safari Edition rather than the Montecristi Edition? Good question.

Okay, I’ll help you out. They look great. Even though it is the same style, the Cocoa and Caramel colors are a completely different look. They probably hook up with a whole different section of your closet than the light-straw-black-ribbon classic Panama hat look.

Field tested in Hawaii. I made a couple of Classic Fedoras SE for myself. Put a wide black ribbon on one. A wide brown ribbon on the other. Cotton twill sweatbands in both. I’ve been wearing one or the other, sometimes both, about once a week for a couple of years. Who knows how many Mai Tai’s they have survived?

These don’t show dirt as much as traditional near-white Panama hats. I often reach for one of these when it’s windy enough that my hat might undertake unmanned flights, and landings in places where I wouldn’t want my hat to be.

I don’t coddle these hats like I do some of my Montecristi personal hats. Maybe I’ve been lucky. Maybe I haven’t abused them as much as I think. But if I have to choose one of these or one of my Montecristis to go banging around in the bush, or to put into an overhead luggage compartment, no contest, amigo mio.

No guarantees, either. I don’t recommend putting any hat into any overhead luggage compartment. Who knows what’s up there? Body parts maybe. Weapons grade plutonium maybe. No nail clippers.

I’m just saying: got a gun to my head, I go with the Classic Fedora SE.

As you can see, changing the ribbon color and/or width changes the look, changes the personality of the hat. And perhaps your own as well. Sorry, ribbons are not interchangeable. Choose your favorite color. Or order lots of hats.

Ordering six would not be considered excessive.

Not by me. It is possible to imagine, if one stretches the mind, that there may be some wife or husband somewhere who might consider six hats all at once to be excessive.

Fashion is like Physics. Some people just don’t get it.

Find perfect. Make a decision. Take a position.

You may quote me if it helps. Call it Black’s 12 ^th Hyperbole. Makes it sound almost indisputable. If that doesn’t work, play Randy Newman’s You Can Leave Your Hat On, and act accordingly. If that doesn’t work either, you’re back to choosing your favorite color.

Let me know how it goes.

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Mombasa SE - Cocoa

Mombasa. I’ve always loved that word. It sounds so exotic, distant, dangerous. Mombasa, you may recall, is a major port city on the coast of Kenya. If you were going to East Africa on safari a hundred years ago, Mombasa might have been where you got off the boat and began your journey into The Dark Continent.

You would want a good sturdy hat to shade you from the equatorial sun. A hat that also would look quite dashing in the flickering light of the evening cookfire.

The Mombasa SE would be a perfect choice. For both you and the Memsahib. Looks equally enviable on men or women.

Classic center dent crown. Choice of brim width. Straw dyed a dirt-defying cocoa color. Choice of ribbon colors. Custom sized for a perfect fit.

If you are a sensible soul who prefers to skip the safari-and-hot-sun stuff in favor of exploring the shaded veranda and libations at the lodge, I may join you on that shaded veranda.

Let’s start with a Tusker beer, well chilled.

Guaranteed Against Elephant Trampling

A Mombasa Safari Edition is so tough that I guarantee it will even stand up to being trampled by an elephant. The nice adventurous shape will be history, of course, but the hat itself will survive a good elephant trampling far better than you would.

Simply return your elephant-trampled hat, along with photos and/or video of the trampling event, and I will replace your hat with a new one. The better the camera work, the more cheerfully I will make your replacement.

City Safaris & Suburban Safaris

It is perfectly acceptable to look adventurous and dashing even when you are within five miles of home. Yes, even when you are in your own backyard, or on your own condo balcony.

The Mombasa SE is an adventurous and dashing hat. By extension, you look adventurous and dashing when wearing one. It’s easy enough to imagine you, Saturday to-do list in hand, journeying from place to place, wearing a Mombasa SE, looking adventurous and dashing, perhaps walking to the beat of native drums, as lions roar in your mind’s ear. Happens to me all the time.

Don’t be surprised if someone asks, “Hey, how’s the safari?”

To which you answer, “Safari sagoodi.”

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Optimo SE – Cocoa

The Cocoa straw and the Ivory ribbon were made for each other, yes?

Major fashion statement. Very tropical. Craves linen and silk. The classic Optimo dome and center crease evoke thoughts of British ex-pats presiding over the warmer colonies. This particular look suggests India to my mind. What one might wear after a hard day of Bengal Lancing.

Freshen up a bit, then swan over to the Officer’s Club for an India Pale Ale, or two. Or twelve. Sit near a window, with the light coming from your side. Side light shows off the center crease better than front or back light.

No matter how many compliments and free rounds come your way, do call it a night well before you are at risk of falling down and wrecking the hat.

I hope your first thought wasn’t: “Can I roll it up?” Yes. If you must. But it looks so crisply shaped, so sharply creased, so smoothly rounded, so…perfect, just as it is. Why risk it? You’ve made it this far in your life without rolling a Cocoa Optimo with an Ivory ribbon, maybe you shouldn’t tempt the Fates.

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Bahama Beach SE - Cocoa

Another classic look. Another must-have style.

The crown shape is the same as my Monte Carlo – a traditional “telescope” crown.

The Adventure Brim is the same as my Kentucky Smith _® SE and Mombasa SE - flat but dipping down in front and back.

The main difference is the attitude. The Bahama Beach suggests rakish angles, more than the other two crown styles. Wearing it dead level is an attitude of its own.

John Steinbeck made these observations on hat angles and attitudes:

“Kino put on his large straw hat and felt it with his hand to see that it was properly placed, not on the back or side of his head, like a rash unmarried irresponsible man, and not flat as an elder would wear it, but tilted a little forward to show aggressiveness and seriousness and vigor. There is a great deal to be seen in the tilt of a hat on a man.” - from The Pearl.

Angles and attitudes vary. What will yours be?

NOTE: You will see in the photos that the Extra-Wide Brims are a different shape than the Wide and Short brims. The x-wide brims in these photos are more “cupped”. The brim edges lift up a little, compared to the others, which are Adventure Brims and are flat but dip down front and back. I can iron an x-wide brim as an Adventure Brim if you wish.

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