Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541330
48 WINTER 2026 I C O N S By Andrea Napier The Hat That The Hat That Made the Man Made the Man Imagine a Costume Designer and an actor in the fitting room of a costume house, surrounded by boxes and boxes of hats. Now imagine the Costume Designer is Deborah Nadoolman Landis and the actor is Harrison Ford and the hat they are looking for is the perfect fedora for Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones' hat may be one of the most recognized and famous pieces of costume in cinematic history, aside from Dorothy's ruby slippers, of course. If the hat could talk, it probably would have been given lines. Instead, it was used repeatedly for character development and recognition, plot points, and comedic relief in each of the Indiana Jones movies. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the hat was even given its own origin story. To George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Landis, Indy's hat was a crucial part of the character well before shooting ever began. Inspired by the look in the swashbuckling adventure movies of both Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Charlton Heston in Secret of the Incas (1954), Lucas and Spielberg had a clear idea of who Indiana Jones would be. When Landis was hired to design Raiders of the Lost Ark, she and Spielberg sat together and watched Incas, taking notes and studying Heston's Harry Steele character and costumes, morphing this into the iconic look of Indiana Jones. In that fitting room at Bermans & Nathans costume rental company, Landis subjected Ford to hat after hat, trying and judging each hat on the actor, scrutinizing its shape, fit, and complement to the actor's look, as well as what would become the signature look for the hero of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The size of the crown, the width of the brim, and the material were all a consideration. This hat would be on his head for the majority of the movie. It had to be an embodiment of Indy's character and a complement to Ford's features. Once Landis and Ford landed on THE hat, Landis took a trip down London's Savile Row to find a match. She would need several for the run of the movie, thus she needed to find a supplier. At the hat maker Herbert Johnson of London, Landis found an Australian model fedora, its overall shape and color being adaptable to the hat she and Ford had chosen. It was made of a malleable, yet durable brown fur felt that would last through the punishment of an adventure movie. Landis had room to cut down the wide brim on the sides, creating a more oval than round shape to the hat, which would be better for filming and lighting. Finally, with just a slight adjustment to the height of the crown, Landis was satisfied and ordered 10 hats. Landis relayed years later to Town & County that with only one full costume ready days before the first shoot day, she traveled to La Rochelle, France, with the costume in her luggage, along with "...sandpaper, Fuller's earth, mineral oil, a steel brush." The costume she had with her was brand new. Before tomorrow morning, it needed to look as if Indy had been wearing it for years. That night after dinner, she sat down at the pool with Ford and she aged the jacket and the hat. Landis even mentions shoving the hat under her hotel mattress to break it down. The final touch cementing the iconic look came by accident when, in order to make the hat fit tighter, Ford turned the hat slightly clockwise on his head. This shifted the ribbon bow on the side away from his ear and more to the front toward his eye. It also adjusted the oval shape of the brim askew, giving the hat an asymmetrical fit and creating the recognizable swoop of the brim. Now the hat was perfect and continued to perfect itself throughout production as it took the same beating everyday as its co-star Indiana Jones. Throughout filming of all the movies, the hat would shift slightly due to model changes and availability. That shift would only be noticeable to a growing number of Indy enthusiasts who watched for the hat differences frame by frame. Studying its provenance from movie to movie. Searching for information about the hat and its maker so they too could have Indy's hat. Brandon Alinger from Propstore remarked for a Town & Country article, "...it's a shaped piece of felt with a ribbon on it. But it does indeed have a magic." "The Indiana Jones fedora hat has etched its place in cinematic history as an enduring symbol of adventure, style, and resilience," remarks Yauni Smith of the American Hat Makers blog. "From its roots in the late 19th century to its iconic presence in the Indiana Jones film series, this classic fedora has become synonymous with the intrepid archaeologist himself."