Stetson

Stetson is the name that effectively defined the American cowboy hat, and that heritage is a real part of what you are buying. John B. Stetson focused on expensive, high-quality hats that represented a genuine investment for the working cowboy and a statement of success for the city dweller, and that ethos still runs through the brand. For a hat you intend to wear for years, the iconography alone makes it hard to beat.

The cost reflects the material and the craft. Stetson's signature hats are made from fur felt, which is lighter, holds its shape and stands up to weather and renovation far better than cheaper alternatives. Add in the brand's history as the world's largest and most famous hat maker, and you are paying for both quality and a name that has been synonymous with "hat" in the West since 1865.

It is the hat that started it all. After returning east in 1865, John B. Stetson created the Boss of the Plains, a high-crowned, wide-brimmed soft-felt hat that became symbolic of the pioneering American West. The original was flat-brimmed with a straight-sided crown, lightweight, waterproof and natural in colour, and it remains in production today as the cornerstone of the business.

Both are leading American Western hat names, and many wearers happily own both. Stetson is widely considered the most recognised hat brand in the world, with a lineage running straight back to the Boss of the Plains in 1865. Choosing between them often comes down to fit and feel on your own head, so if you can, try each before deciding.

John B. Stetson founded the John B. Stetson Company in Philadelphia in 1865. He had headed west from his native New Jersey for his health, created a rugged beaver-felt hat for himself while panning for gold in Colorado, and returned east to turn that idea into a business. That personal Western experience is exactly what he poured into the Boss of the Plains.

John B. Stetson was born in 1830 in Orange, New Jersey, where his father Stephen Stetson was a hatter, so he learned the trade in the family shop before going West for his health. His contributions were significant enough that Stetson University and its College of Law in Florida were named after him in 1899. He is, in short, the man whose name became shorthand for the cowboy hat itself.

Stetson mailed a sample hat to merchants across the Southwest asking for a minimum order, and the Boss of the Plains was an immediate hit, with a new factory needed within a year. Within a decade the name Stetson had become synonymous with the word "hat" almost everywhere in the West. By 1886 it was the largest hat company in the world.

Despite the name, it has nothing to do with holding ten gallons of water. According to Win Blevins' Dictionary of the American West, the term derives from the Spanish word galón, meaning braid, with "ten" indicating the number of braids used as a hatband. Texans were especially known for their preference for the "Ten Gallon" model.

Stetson became tied to the icons of the era. Early on its hats were associated with figures including "Buffalo Bill", Calamity Jane, Will Rogers and Annie Oakley, and George Custer is said to have ridden into the Battle of Little Big Horn wearing one. Later, Western movie cowboys adopted the Stetson too, often choosing the largest, most flamboyant styles available.

The brand reaches well past the range. Alongside its Western and fashion hats, Stetson produces trucker hats, fragrance, apparel, footwear, eyewear, belts, bourbon and other products that evoke the historic American West. It also made "dress" hats distinguished from Western styles by narrower brims and shorter crowns, and even ran a women's millinery department from the 1930s to the 1950s.