stylegurrl
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The NYT has an article on hats ahd how they are again in vogue;
NYT (photos)
NYT (photos)
August 17, 2004
Fedoras Fly and Trilbys, Too: Downtown Tips Its Hat to Harlem
By GINIA BELLAFANTE
hen Rod Keenan arrived in Manhattan from Kansas more than a decade ago, transported by dreams of becoming a kind of contemporary Charles James, he took to the benighted habit of wearing a hat, a practice that yielded certain demographic discoveries. Generally speaking, his encounters with mockery took place in locations south of Morningside Park.
"I'd be walking around downtown, and people would give me a weird look or say `What is up with that hat?' " Mr. Keenan explained last week at his West 122nd Street town house. "But in Harlem, where there is a long tradition of formal dress, I'd always get a `Hey, man, nice hat.' "
Fortunately for Mr. Keenan, who is one of the city's few custom men's hat makers, such geographic divisions no longer hold. At a time when formality is hardly the order of the day and presidential candidates campaign for office as if the whole of their wardrobes derived from the Gap gestalt, traditional men's hats including Panamas, fedoras and newsboy caps, among other iterations, are experiencing an unforeseen resurgence.
The current issue of Cargo, the new fashion magazine for young men, features a model in a plaid suit and a two-toned golf cap on one page, and another scouring a library shelf in a tweed trilby from Lands' End on the next. Mr. Keenan has watched with some fascination as his traditional hats have turned up in eccentrically minded style publications like Flaunt, as well as in Maxim and Stuff, men's magazines that pay little attention to the foppish.
At the same time, the Stetson company has chosen this moment to revamp its image. Early next year, the 140-year-old milliner, known as much for its organization-man hats as for its Western styles, will open its first-ever store on Bleecker Street, amidst the frenzy of the Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren boutiques. Eighteen months ago, the company put a new creative team in place to produce a line of expensive men's hats, some with intricate weaves and hand painting, that would sell at stores like Bergdorf Goodman to the urbane sorts who drive Vespas and speak more than one Romance language. It would be called "the modern collection."
During the venture's first season, Henry Hershkowitz, the company's new creative director, said, only 12 fedoras from the new line were sold to stores. For the coming winter season, the company sold hundreds. And for spring 2005, Mr. Hershkowitz, once a lawyer and an owner of the Screening Room in TriBeCa, reported that the modern collection will offer three varieties of the fedora, so great is the demand for the hat.
"It's very interesting to look at the demographics of all this," said Aida O'Toole, the owner of J. J. Hats on Fifth Avenue, the 93-year-old purveyor of old-guard Stetsons, boaters and Borsalinos. "We're getting 16-year-olds coming in here now asking for fedoras." Three or four years ago, Ms. O'Toole began noticing younger browsers in her shop. "We saw a big hat craze around the time of `Urban Cowboy,' " she said, "but after that it was quiet for a very long time."
When considering the cultural forces behind the renewed affection for such head gear, the impact of celebrity endorsement cannot be ignored. "I hate to say it, but if I had to cite a reason for all this, I'd have to say `Queer Eye,' " Mr. Keenan acknowledged. But hip-hop artists like Wyclef Jean frequently turn up in formal hats, and so do movie stars like Brad Pitt. Not long after a contestant on "Celebrity Poker Showdown" on Bravo played his hands wearing a particular trilby, Mr. Keenan was deluged with requests for the hat.
One afternoon last week, the actor Nicolas Cage paid a visit to the Midtown studio of Orlando, the one-named custom milliner who also produces hats for Worth & Worth and looks as though he should be a competitive tango dancer. In his work space, surrounded by wood hat blocks, steaming devices and framed advertisements that might have appeared in Fortune circa 1952, are Irish walking hats and the straw sorts that seem to be begging for the companionship only seersucker blazers could provide.
"Fifteen years ago, you'd see the mature man coming here — you know, 50 and up," Orlando noted. "Now I'm seeing the $150,000-a-year-plus, 32-year-old professional." Orlando's felt hats cost about $125; his cashmere ones, $350. Each year, though, he turns out two or three finely woven Montecristi straw hats that each take a year and 10 pairs of hands to weave. Mr. Cage bought one for $3,000.
However influential celebrity hat-wearing may be, most in the millinery trade acknowledge a gloomier imperative. "The whole hip-hop generation has done a lot for the hat business," Ms. O'Toole said. "But the real reason behind it all? Skin cancer."
I feel like almost nobody wears hats here. If I ever go to Japan, I'm totally loading up on cool hats. B)
As You Like It got my thinking about hats today...I think that they are wonderful. 
Here's Ciara Nugent sporting one.
