Sizing
Finding Your Fez Size
Our hat sizes are slightly different than what you may have come across in the past. We don't use the traditional "head circumference divided by Pi" that many traditional milliners use for two reasons. Firstly, our fezzes and chapeaus are cut and sewn from soft materials, not made from felt stretched over a shaped block and then hardened. So our sizes come from our patterns not from a carved wooden form or industrial press. Secondly, could they have come up with a more needlessly complex way to designate sizes than dividing by Pi? ...and with fractions? Never mind my general math reservations with Pi as a concept, I'll let Vi Hart cover that. Anyway we simply use your head circumference rounded up to the nearest half inch.
Tall vs Low Fezzes
We offer two main styles of fezzes, the more traditional Tall Fez and the more casual Low Fez. In the beginning we made just the original 5.25" tall fez but I quickly discovered that it would clip the door frame as I got into and out of my car and would often drag against the headliner while driving. So to remedy this I created the "low fez" basically shortening the fez until it touched the top of my head. Low Fezzes are a good place to start your fez wearing if you don't have any experience wearing tall hats. The Tall Fez makes more of a statement and is the sort of thing I prefer to dress up to. It has that classic look seen in classic movies from a time when people dressed up for dinner and didn't wear short pants to the theater. There is a mysterious third style "Venti Fez" but it is rarely seen in polite company.
Chapeaux
The Fez-o-Chapeau is a unisex hat loosely inspired by the Scottish glengarry cap, which is why it tends to be popular with the kilt-sporting crowd. We don't offer as many sizes of chapeaux as we do fezzes, and the size range is different so be sure to double-check you measurement. Guys tend to want to wear them lower on the head so if you are on the cusp between sizes you may want to go with the bigger size. Ladies might want to go smaller as many choose to wear them "pin-up" style and use a hair clip or bobby pin to wear it on top of their head. Shape of one's head also plays into the fit of the Chapeau, while narrow heads will find the chapeau fits easily, wide heads may be uncomfortable with the amount of scalp exposed. This really comes down to personal preference.
Size Chart
Head Measurement |
Then you are most likely a | |
Inches |
Fez size: |
Chapeau size: |
22″ |
Small |
Small |
22.5″ | Medium | |
23″ | Large | Medium |
23.5″ | XL | |
24″ | 2X | Large |
24.5″ | 3X | |
25″ | 4X | XL |
25.5″ | 5X | |
26″ | 6X | – |
26.5″ | 7X | – |
We can also go ‘outside’ the norm when it comes to making either extreme size fez – from XXXS to 7XL. However, these can be done only for current production designs, and we do need a tad bit of lead time. Send us an email and we’ll see what we can do.