Published by Celestyna Brozek under Accessories, Designers

Today our story is about green hats. But first, how did four young women come to own a men’s hat shop?

Sometimes our destinies play hard to get, sometimes they hunt us down with a serendipity that leaves us breathless. Case in point: Olivia Griffin came by her current venture in a way that only makes sense if you invoke the alignment of the planets. Olivia and her three roommates/best friends were regulars at a diner that was adjacent to an old-fashioned men’s hat store. On their way to breakfast every morning, they would peer into its darkened windows, wondering why it was never open. Then one fateful New Year’s Day, after staying out all night, Olivia was heading home from the diner, still in her evening wear, which consisted of a dazzling, be-fringed, over-the-top cowgirl outfit when she noticed the shop was open. Curious, she ventured inside, where the owner greeted her presence without batting an eye.

1. A postcard from a fan of Paul's 2. Custom design silk screened ribbon

After conversing with “Paul” (actually Michael, who took over the shop from Kelly, the godson of the original owner, who did go by Paul and opened the shop in 1918) for over an hour, Olivia learned that he’d been trying to sell the shop for a while and an idea was born. Impulsively she expressed interest and Paul invited her and her friends back the next day. “He probably wasn’t expecting us to come,” says Olivia, “but we literally just walked in and all just kind of fell in love and said, well, we have to try!”

Paul trained the girls intensively for six months, and the pressure was on, because the hats the girls were learning on actually belonged to customers, so they had to be perfect! “I’ve learned more in the last six months than my whole life, it feels like,” laughs Olivia. “The tricky thing is, you handle the hat for six to eight hours and you have to make it look like it’s never been touched.”

1. A whimsical tee design 2. Olivia demonstrating the contraption that precisely measures heads

Since gaining ownership of the store, the girls have been brainstorming ideas for reaching a broader audience and making the business more sustainable. First off they introduced consignment items like vintage ties, cuff links and belt buckles at incredibly reasonable prices, and collaborated with a graphic designer in Australia on fantastically covetable tees that pair off mustaches with different types of hats, such as the porkpie, the bowler and the fedora so that customers could support the shop without shelling out for a hat, which can run upwards of $600.

The girls came up with the motto: bringing the hat back! Listening to Olivia talk, and hearing deliciously strange words roll off her tongue like flange and porkpie, we laugh that the Fedora, being the most popular hat, is the “gateway” hat. After that men branch off, with some of the customers owning literally hundreds of hats!

The store's old-fashioned vibe of 100% genuine hat shop

Because Paul’s Hat Works is so small and localized, the girls are very aware of their suppliers. They get their straw woven in Ecuador by small co-ops and families, and are planning a trip in the future to establish closer relationships with their suppliers. Weaving a single hat can take 6 – 8 months, says Olivia, part of the reason the price point on the hats is high.

Bringing the hat to a wider audience has inspired the idea of hat mobs, or getting a crowd of people to show up in a predetermined spot all wearing hats at the same time, and also motivated the girls to begin renting hats to both individuals and theater companies.

1. Collecting hats for the A.W.O.K.E line 2. How hats are made

However, the piece de resistance of Paul’s most recent activity is the A.W.O.K.E. line, Paul’s line of refurbished pre-owned hats. With a casual glance at what to me seems like a piece of trash, Olivia assesses the material to be a quality beaver/rabbit blend felt and starts playing with the crown of the sad little hat, shaping it deftly into a natty fedora. A.W.O.K.E. represents both the initials of the girls and also the idea that with their new-found skills and razor sharp design sensibilities (three of the girls majored in costume or fashion design and Olivia is currently neck deep in costuming not one but three Tennessee Williams shows) the girls could take the ugliest, sorriest hat ever and wake it up into a new incarnation.

Listen up, Bay Area! Currently they are accepting hat donations and scouting local Goodwills. The more challenging the better – holes, fading, fraying – Paul’s Hat Works wants them all! Once the girls have enough hats, each one will design her own line under the A.W.O.K.E. label, adding unique touches such as custom print silk screened ribbon, making better than new creations from unwanted hats!

Green hats? It gets even better. Olivia, a proponent of sustainable fashion since her school days, is also toying with the idea of creating a textile waste based felt, using leftover silk and and wool scraps, in addition to  the beaver felt the girls currently source from a mill in Tennessee. So – if anyone can bring the hat back, these four wonder women can!