Handmade hats thrive in this multi-million-dollar industry
Hats on the Horizon
Handmade hats thrive in this multi-million-dollar industry |
| ||
| by Noelle Backer | |||
Sloane started her hat business nearly 10 years ago, helping her sister, also a craftsperson, at craft shows. She divides her time between creating and selling her hats (which range in price from $90 to $145), and raising her five-year-old son. While she doesn't rely on her business as her sole means of support, she believes that she could. |
"For real hat lovers, hats have always been 'in,'" says hat maker Cynthia White of Lady Cynthia Millinery in Sutter Creek, Calif. But today, the hat field seems to be attracting more than just die-hard hat lovers. In fact, some hat makers have attracted so much new business that they're almost in over their heads.
There are hat makers of every kind making unique hats for every occasion -- weddings, ski trips, costume parties, Sunday Mass, vacations, horse races, parades, and so on. There are hat makers recreating the past for historic reenactments, Renaissance festivals, movies like "My Fair Lady" and "Titanic," and television shows like "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Runway models donning fancy berets and pill box hats with floor-length ribbons, and hat-sporting celebrities like Princess Diana and Elton John have definitely given hats a higher profile in recent years.
To prove this, Casey Bush, director and founder of the Headwear Information Bureau in New York City, reveals staggering statistics -- sales of hats have been going up 10 to 15 percent each year since the mid-'80s.
The bureau's statistics also prove another interesting fact -- that women's hats comprise the overwhelming majority of hat sales in the U.S., bringing in an estimated $830 million in 1997. No statistics are available for men's hats, as not enough information exists. Bush explains, "We've just opened up our membership in the last year to include men's hats," a move which prompted the organization to abandon its former name, the Millinery Information Bureau.
In the early '80s, Dial, while reading Gale Sheehy's book, "Passages," came upon Sheehy's observation that the happiest, most satisfied people were those who developed their talents and made their living using their gifts. "Intuitively I sensed that I could get great spiritual and personal growth out of this challenging pursuit," says Dial. Now she makes and sells her hats full-time wholesale and retail. She also sees the Web "as an ideal place with serious potential for niche designers and unique work."
Joseph DelMonico, owner of DelMonico Hatter, Connecticut's only men's hattery (and one of the few in the country), expects that men's hat sales will rise quickly in the near future due to one thing: protection from the sun. "We're getting more and more men who say that their dermatologists told them to buy a hat," DelMonico explains. "With the increasing risks of skin cancer, men who would traditionally wear a baseball hat while golfing are buying something that will shade their ears and their necks."
Milliner and millinery teacher Wayne Wichern of Seattle, Wash., brings in a steady income to supplement his own hat business by assembling hats for a specialty store for people with skin cancer. "The work I do for them basically lifted my hat-making work from part time to full time," Wichern explains. "But that's even getting too big for me now, while my own work is picking up."
Retailer Mary Trice, owner of The T Room in Richmond, Va., is currently offering men's hats in only one style. Hat sales in general make up a very small percentage of The T Room's total sales, as the shop's products range from household accessories, linens and garden items, to women's clothing and accessories. "Not as many men shop for themselves, and women don't really buy hats for men," says Trice. "Hats are too personal; you need to try them on," she continues. She agrees that the sales of men's hats will rise, as will the sales of women's hats, as people shield themselves from the sun and as men begin to shop more, which she believes is already beginning to happen.
Hat makers, too, find men's hat sales difficult. "Men don't love fashion the way women do," says Susan Bradford, a chemistry graduate who now creates hats, coats, slippers and mittens as Sheepskin by Susan Bradford in Bradford, Vt. Bradford does make a few items for men, but focuses on women. "If a woman puts on a hat or a coat and they look great, they buy it, usually without a second thought," she adds.
"Women tend to wear more hats than men," says Maria Pritchett of Hats in the Belfry, a retail store in Philadelphia, Pa. "Especially when it's raining and they're having a bad hair day."
Wichern will make a men's hat on custom order if a man wants something unusual, like a funky color or style. Because of his background in floral design and theatre/dance, he prefers making more creative styles generally characteristic of women's hats.
One hat maker who doesn't find it difficult to sell men's hats is Jill Kelly, who says that men's hat sales comprise a third of the total sales for her Cloverdale, Calif.-based business, Regalia, Festive Finery. She creates whimsical, costume-like hats, like pirate hats and top hats, that seem to appeal to the playful nature of many men. "Men are big hat buyers. They have no hesitation about buying something on a whim," she says. "Most men don't go shopping for hats, but when they run into them, they buy them."
In fact, many famous men are clients of Kelly's -- Robin Williams, Bruce Springstein, Tom Petty, Robert Plant, John Cleese and Michael Palin, and even the satirical rock band Primus has sported Kelly's hats.
A silk velvet hat with macaw feathers, by Davyne Dial.
Susan Bradford, who has been running her own full-time craft business since 1986, has over 100 wholesale accounts. She has sold her sheepskin hats, coats, mittens and slippers at a ski industry show in Las Vegas. Her hats, which comprise about 60 percent of her business, sell from $75 to $250, and her coats, from $850 to $2,000.White doesn't make men's hats because they are too limiting for her creativity. "Men's hats are much more precise, more tailored than my designs. Men's hats just wouldn't be as much fun."
HATS FOR CHILDREN
White has also stayed away from making hats for children, a sentiment shared by most hat makers. "Children's hats are too cost-prohibitive for parents. They don't want to spend money on something that a child will likely lose or ruin right away," she explains.
Adrienne Sloane, a Boston, Mass.-based creator of sculptural knit hats, agrees. "I have occasionally made children's hats, and now I only make them for my son," she says. "Pricing really becomes a problem because they can require as much work and can be as intricate in design as adult hats, but people are less likely to put that kind of money into something that a child is likely to [destroy]."
Women are by far the biggest hat fans. They seek all styles, colors and levels of extravagance. Kelly's hats have graced television screens and magazines on the heads of famous women, such as Delta Burke, Stevie Nicks and Cher. A factor in the development of such a clientele has been the markets in which Kelly sells her work. "I need markets where people are having a good time," she says, referring to shows she has done near Hollywood and the shops she sells through in New Orleans' French Quarter, which is where many of her associations with musicians developed. "I also used to do a lot of outdoor music festivals/craft shows. I make happy hats, so I have to go where people are happy!" she exclaims. Now, Kelly focuses on indoor shows, where her hats won't be affected by wind and weather, "and," she laughs, "where people aren't getting drunk. The way people treat your merchandise can differ greatly when they're drunk."
Overall, women are drawn almost magnetically to hats that transform them, give them new personality. They come from all parts of the country, all income levels and all age groups. Even in Wilmington, Del., "a pretty conservative city," says Sue Croes of Blue Streak Gallery, "the hats fly out of here ... and many of the hats aren't conservative."
|
"I love watching women try on hats," says Petaluma, Calif.-based milliner Kate Bishop, who sells her elegant hats both wholesale and retail. "It's very different from trying on clothes. I made dresses and evening gowns for years. When women in our culture try on dresses," she continues, "it frequently brings out their insecurities about their bodies, and they become very critical of themselves. But while trying on my hats, they show many sides of their personalities -- they're spunky, feisty ... mysterious, ethereal ... dramatic, maybe goofy, but rarely self-critical."
But women's preoccupation with self-image can be a limiting factor in their decisions to purchase a hat. "The major challenge to selling hats is the customer's limited concept of what she can and can't do," Bishop adds. "At first a lot of women are concerned about the 'rules' of hat wearing, a concept left over from another era. I tell them that we don't 'do' rules. But, of course, you don't forsake good manners by wearing a big hat to a theater where people can't see over you, for example."
Milliner Davyne Dial, who says she was "the girl in grade school who decorated the valentine boxes and painted the Christmas scenes on the windows," agrees that women perceive themselves differently when trying on hats, but says this can be a problem. "The strange thing about hats," Dial explains, "is how many, many women feel about looking good. ... A hat makes one stand out from the crowd, and an insecure woman cannot deal with being the center of attention. I cannot do much about this particular problem," she continues. "I chalk it up to social repression, and sometimes gently chide this phenomenon."
Dial realized the popularity of hats while exhibiting her handmade jewelry at the Atlanta Apparel Market. "Using my own hats to enhance the jewelry displays, I found more people interested in the hats than the jewelry," she recalls. Now, she sells hats exclusively for her business, Davyne Dial Millinery in Asheville, N.C.
Sloane was "bowled over" by how well her hats were received at her first show about 10 years ago, where one woman bought six hats for herself. "But, you also have to consider the kind of economic times you're in, and in the late '80s, it was still booming and people used to buy multiples of things. ... The economic times have changed, and so have my styles and prices, so it's hard to reconcile those things."
Margaret Rzadkowski of Hats by Margaret in Chicago, Ill., thinks that "fashion" hats are in a slump. "Hats are not much in vogue today," she says, "and my designs are perhaps too couture for women who shop at Neiman-Marcus." Still, she believes that every woman should have a hat in their wardrobe. Her extravagant, daringly styled hats attract a clientele that she says, "is rather young, adventurous and willing to take risks."
Hat makers and retailers alike say that their sales are not affected by the winter holidays. "Hats are not great gifts," says White. "Most women prefer to choose their own style."
Customers tend to buy year-round, although some locales and artists have their heavier sales rushes at different times. Sales at Hats in the Belfry are best in the summer, as its location on Philadelphia's touristy South Street brings people out of the woodwork in warm weather. At Wilmington's Blue Streak Gallery sales are higher in the winter, and the work of several different hat makers is featured during that time. Mary Trice at The T Room in Richmond says that sales are at their best before events like the city's horse races and Easter Parade.
CONTACT INFORMATION | |
|
Kate Bishop Hats and Accessories Blue Streak Gallery Sheepskin by Susan Bradford Davyne Dial Millinery Hats in the Belfry Jill Kelly |
Hats by Margaret Adrienne Sloane The T-Room Lady Cynthia Millinery Wayne Wichern |
Davyne Dial's sales are stronger during the warmer months. "My spring/summer line is stronger than the winter line, due to our being in the South. The regionality of the Atlanta Apparel Market has helped extend the length of my straw lines because many shops from Florida go to that market," she says. "My plan is to head up the East Coast, which should help add to the winter line next year."
Wichern's elegant, often romantic or extravagant hats, which retail for $85 to $300, sell the best in spring and summer. "I've had to learn to balance my income to cover the 'dry' seasons," he says. But, in general, he finds that hats are more popular in the South, where he says, "people just seem to wear more hats. It might be the strong church-going tradition or something ... who knows."
White's hat sales are best in the spring and summer months also, but, she says, retail sales in general are more affected by the weather. "If it's too rainy, they don't come. If it's too hot, they don't come ..."
Jill Kelly's specialty hats are most popular around Halloween and around New Orleans' Mardi Gras.
And Adrienne Sloane creates her own seasonality. "I tend to show in the fall, design in the winter, and produce in the spring and summer, so it works pretty well for me!"
Perhaps one of the most surprising venues for hat sales is the Internet. Many hat makers are actually taking orders through their Web sites, despite the fact that the consumer cannot try the hats on.
"I've had a few people buy through the Web," says Kelly. "Mostly, they'll find the site and then call me to talk about the right size, so I know exactly what they want. I haven't had any returns, either, so I guess it's working."
White has gotten a lot of wholesale and retail orders and inquiries through her Web site. She had thought it would be hard to do custom work, but with modern technology, she can almost create the work as if she and the customer were meeting face to face. "With my digital camera, I can even e-mail photos of the work-in-progress to make sure they like it."
Susan Bradford says that a lot of people tell her they found her work on the Web. "A lot of customers look at my Web site to see my show schedule and my catalog, and then they'll call or meet me at a show. I do get some orders directly from it," she says.
Still, for most hat makers, the best advertising is word of mouth. "People notice you when you're wearing a hat," says White.
FOR MORE INFORMATION |
|
Contact: |
The biggest challenge facing hat makers is the one facing most craftspeople -- competition from mass-produced products. Wichern believes that this challenge may be harder to remedy for men's hats, perhaps explaining the small number of men's hat makers. "There are so many highly skilled men's hatwear companies producing high-quality work, that I could never compete with the price," he says. Occasionally, though, a man wants a hat different from what the big companies can make, and Wichern and other handmade hat makers step in. The other advantage Wichern creates for himself, he says, "is that I can offer to respond to what a customer wants -- if they want something in a different color or trim -- factories can't do that."
This challenge also urged Kelly to focus on specialty hats. "There are so many hat makers in the market creating knock-offs, and even the big hat companies produce hats similar in style at cheaper prices. I can't compete with that," she explains. "So I make more full costumes to go with the hats, and a lot more of the upper-end of my line. I just try to make things that are different enough from what's being mass-produced, to make what they can't."
Noelle Backer is senior editor of The Crafts Report.
JULY 1998 HOME
