Scala goes back in time (or at least a little retro) with their Wool Felt Zoot (and not it's not a suit!). It's a racy wool felt pinch front beaut with attitude and plenty of colors to choose from. For formal affairs, they offer The Mad Hatter top hat and their satin-lined Derby (a masterful replication), but if you need to get all contemporary again, Scala's famed slightly edgy New Yorker Fedora with double bow and bound edge or Jazz Porkpie Dress Hat might be your ticket to hat heaven. There's a nobody's business hat in 100% wool felt too. Called The Mahoney Western Dress Hat, it's a Dobbs Hats creation, with a sprinkle of western flavor tossed in for free. Very nice hat in and of itself; it's also an affordable 'cross over' hat.

Not everything Dobbs is cross over: The Dobbs Hats Dandy, for instance, from their Fashion Wool Collection, is an unlined classy bone colored brim pinch front. Pretty straightforward as to dress hat genre, wouldn't you say? The St. George bound edge beauty does teeter perhaps as a gender-bender chapeau, but The Fleetwood Homburg is a no-quibble choice when you're headed out for a night on the town.

You really can go anywhere in your wool felt men's hat, especially if it's The Stacy Adams Wool Felt Edward VII, pretty much fit for a king, old chap! Named after the British monarch who popularized this type of men's hat, The Edward VII is certainly a most fastidious replica of an unmistakeable hat shape. One of the most comfortable fedoras I've worn in a while is The Debonair, a snap brim in wool felt from Stacy Adams, and the stingy brim Dapper Dan is for those who like a traditional (but never stodgy) look.

I told ya wool felt was versatile.