April 12, 2019 American Hat Makers	Leave a comment
Originally founded in 1908 in New York City, The Headwear Association is the oldest trade association in the fashion industry, and is dedicated to promoting hats and the headwear industry throughout the world, and to foster goodwill and fellowship among those engaged in the headwear industry.
This year's dinner is a bit of a special time for not just us here at American Hat Makers, but for everyone at the Headwear Association. Garth's term as president has come to an end, and at tonight's dinner we are passing the torch to Gerry Miller Jr.
"Serving as president has been an ultimate honor", says Garth. "Being able to usher new business relationships and do my part to drive the hat industry to new heights has been such a gift."
The night went so splendidly. Naturally, we started with the business end of things, and to unwind after that we had a little cocktail hour. After that, we had a wonderful fashion show featuring all of the new styles that everyone is testing out. It was absolutely amazing!
Seeing all the gorgeous outfits made us quite hungry, and we ate a fabulous dinner to prep us for the awards show. Retailer of the Year went to Hatsational!
The Ben Rosenthal Award went to Douglas Highsmith of Dorfman Pacific hat company.
The Lieberman Award went to the one and only Garth Watrous of American Hat Makers.
And finally, the Fit Scholarship went to Marisa Belfiore.
Hannah and Carol Fit Professor Millinery and Accessories Dept
Lovely Millinery Ladies
Flashback pictures of Garth and Hannah Watrous
Annual group photo stay tuned for updated photo from photographer
Socializing at the event
Garth, Don R, BobB
Zack @ Village Hats
This year the headwear Association provided pedicabs to shuttle us to The Boathouse.
On corner of 5th Ave and 72nd and look for the pedicab drivers in the RED KANGOL Hats.
Thank you Ruby Roxanne for designing Hannah's Hats every year.
Until next time!!
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Voodoo Hatter!
November 24, 2016 American Hat Makers	Leave a comment
Voodoo Hatter goes to lengths unseen to deliver the ultimate in handmade leather top hats. 19th Century style infused with fierce sensibility and a touch of dark energy make our Voodoo Top Hats essential to your subversive lifestyle.
The Caliber in red, black, cigar, and rattlesnake.
From hard-kicking rocker to brazen biker or neo-noir grifter, you will make a definitive statement wherever you go. We designed these bad asses to be the kinds of hats you can become known for wearing. Formed out of black or brown full-grain smooth leather, our toppers are built to last. The new additions feature remarkable airbrushed, laser engraved designs and eye catching rattlesnake skin overlay.
The Skull N Roses (design by Adam Rose)
Adam Rose of Fallen Owl Tattoo is an amazing tattoo artist who sends us his designs to be used in the production of our hats!
The Silver Skull (design by Adam Rose)
These styles utilize state-of-the-art laser engraving and airbrushing techniques to perfectly recreate Adam's absolutely stunning works of art.
The Cocktailer (design by Adam Rose)
Shipwrecked (design by Adam Rose)
Balance (design by Adam Rose)
Voodoo Hatter lives for biker rallies! Whether it's the Lone Star rally in Galveston, Texas or the world famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally we love absolutely tearing it up with our fans and having a great time.This year's rallies were especially great. As we attend more and more rallies, Voodoo Hatter becomes more and more recognizable among the community and being able to experience that first hand is incredible!
Downtown Sturgis 2016
Enjoying Sturgis Motorcycle Rally
Voodoo Hatter is even respected among celebrities! We're absolutely delighted to see such a wide range of stars enjoying our hats!
Steven Tyler of Aerosmith looking absolutely characteristic in an El Dorado
Elvis Nolasco of American Crime rocking an El Dorado
Anastasia Baranova of Z Nation wearing an El Dorado.
It really isn't hard to see why Voodoo Hatter is so well loved! When you put on a topper by Voodoo Hatter it invokes an adventurous spirit that's sure to take you to new places! When it comes to Voodoo Hatter, the meek need not apply!
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GBK'S First Annual Naughty or Nice Giving Lounge
Breeda Wool in a Summit
This year's first annual GBK Naughty or Nice Gifting Lounge is going to be epic! American Hat Makers is excited to be able to attend this event and make a difference out in the community! For those who don't know, GBK's Celebrity Gifting Suites bring together high profile celebrities and product manufacturers and brands in order to generate awareness of charitable issues, and to give manufacturers international coverage of their products.
Greer Grammer in a Cyclone
Individuals bid on the opportunity to attend a lounge with the celebrity of their choice, and have the opportunity to get their product into the hands of some of the most influential people around! It's always a great opportunity to get to meet so many amazing people and to share the products we are so passionate about!
Dolvett Quince
At American Hat Makers our mission is to provide our customers with distinctive, one-of-a-kind, artisan hats made by hand with the finest materials sourced and produced in the United States. Above and beyond the creation of superior products, we are dedicated to treating our customers and employees with compassion, integrity, and a commitment to bettering our community through service, philanthropy, and open-heartedness. Around the holiday season, we at American Hat Makers like to reflect on how blessed and fortunate we are, so we jumped at another chance to work with Gavin at GBK to make a positive impact in the community! His connections truly have what it takes to launch a company to the next level!
Anastasia Baranova in an El Dorado.
Anastasia Baranova was born in Moscow, Russia, in what was then part of the Soviet Union. As a child, she began modeling in Moscow. In 1998, Baranova and her mother, Ata, moved from Russia to Minnesota in the United States, where she continued to model. In 2000, they moved to California, where Baranova began her acting career. Baranova began her acting career in 2002 with a small speaking role on the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire. She then won the lead role for the Discovery Kids/ NBC television series Scout's Safari, playing the character Jennifer Lauer. To learn the English language, she used the Jumpstart CD-ROM series and took speech and singing classes. She is fluent in both Russian and English, and studied at Chapman University. In 2014, Baranova joined the cast of the Syfy post-apocalyptic horror-comedy-drama series Z Nation, playing the role of Addison "Addy" Carver.
Gilles Marini in a Cyclone
Gilles Marini is a french-american actor known for his roles in the film Sex and the City and in the television shows Brother and Sister and Switched at Birth. After working as a baker in his father's bakery since he was eight years old and high school, he joined the French army and was stationed in Paris, where he served as a fireman in the Paris Fire Brigade. It was in Paris where Marini met Fred Goudon, a photographer who introduced him to the world of modeling. After fulfilling his military duties, he went to the United States to learn English while working as a model. He began his career as a model in his early twenties. One of his first jobs was a television commercial for Bud Light beer. He made his acting debut at the age of 29, in the 2005 horror flick Screech of the Decapitated.
Jimmy Jean-Louis in a Cyclone
Jimmy Jean-Louis (born August 8, 1968) is a Haitian actor and model best known for his role as "the Haitian" on the NBC television series Heroes. Jean-Louis was born in Petionville, near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He lived there until the age of twelve, when he moved to Paris with his family to pursue a modeling career, after moving he experienced a culture shock because of the rural to city lifestyle change. He enrolled in business courses, but quickly realized that his heart lay in performance, and studied at the Académie Internationale de la Danse. His parents returned to Haiti, but Jean-Louis and his brother remained in Paris. Around a decade later in 1991, producers discovered Jean-Louis during one of his dancing stints in a French club, who were impressed. They tapped him to appear in a Coca-Cola advertisement, the success of which prompted the Jean-Louis to spend several years modeling across Europe. He was very successful in London, working for such notables as Gianfranco Ferre and Valentino. Before finding success as a model, he was homeless at times in Paris. By the mid-'90s, he was gracing music videos by such stars as Mariah Carey, Seal, and George Michael, and appearing in low-budget "independent" films in Los Angeles.
Krista Marie Yu in a Summit.
Krista Marie Yu was born on October 25, 1988 in Alameda, California, USA. She is an actress notable for her role as Molly on the ABC sitcom Dr. Ken. She has been a guest on television series that include The Thundermans, Agent Carter, Switched at Birth, The Middle, and Cougar Town. She has been featured in the major motion pictures The Darkness and Love the Coopers.
Cerina Vincent in a limited edition Double G hat.
Cerina Vincent is an American actress and writer best known for playing Maya the Yellow Galaxy Ranger in the television series Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, as well as her film appearances in Not Another Teen Movie, Cabin Fever, It Waits, and Everybody Wants to Be Italian. She has written three books with Jodi Lipper, and writes a regular column for The Huffington Post.
This year's event is going to be held at OUE Skyspace LA inside the U.S Bank tower and we're beyond excited to see the beautiful view of Los Angeles and enjoy the holiday season!
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The Decline of the Hat in American Culture
October 5, 2016 American Hat Makers	Leave a comment
Hats have been a staple of fashion and elegance for millennia. Glance over any picture of a crowd in the early 1900's and you'd have a hard time finding anyone hat-less! Leaving your house without your hat was comparable to going to work without your pants! So what caused such a popular and widely used accessory to be phased out? During the early 1900's, a renaissance of self-grooming habits arose which saw the first commercially released PH-Balanced shampoo. This discovery promoted showing off your hair, which would require leaving your hat at home. A May 1908 printing of the New York Times contained an article detailing the processes and benefits of shampooing, saying that hair that is "soft and glossy in appearance and texture" was of utmost desirability, thus encouraging many people to embrace these new hat-less style trends.
At the start of WWII, any non-essential resource or material was redirected for the wartime effort. This disrupted the availability of many of the materials necessary for the production of different hat styles. Fashion had to respond accordingly, and many man-made materials and alternative processes were developed to replace the scarce resources. Although millinery itself was unrestricted by law, due to extreme rationing, hats became largely unavailable simply due to the fact that they were not a necessary item. Average citizens could not justify using precious rationing coupons on something as frivolous as a hat. Men returning from war had just endured five years of regulated uniforms which did not include hats, and many were not eager to resume wearing them when they returned and simply hung up their helmets and abandoned head wear entirely.
Years after the end of WWII, President Dwight D. Eisenhower became a key player in the implementation of a national interstate highway system. His experiences during the 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, which was a long distance military convoy that traveled roughly 3000 miles from Washington D.C using the Lincoln Highway, gave him the knowledge necessary to design an effective transport system across the country. While serving as an allied general, he gained an appreciation for Germany's Reichsautobahn system which was the early version of today's Autobahn. Eisenhower noted at how quickly a central highway system could be used to deploy troops and resources necessary to combat an invasion or provide relief for an emergency.
With the implementation of a national highway system, transport in America shifted from bustling, cramped, public transport to using personal automobiles made available by companies such as Chevrolet and Ford. This shift from public to private transit is probably the most to blame for the decline in hats. When using public transit, a large portion of time is spent enduring the elements, whether walking to the bus station or sitting on a bench waiting for the bus to arrive. The unpredictability of the elements made it smart to wear an outfit that could be used in various weather conditions. Therefore, no outfit would be complete without a hat. As more and more citizens made the change to private transit, time spent outside while traveling dwindled greatly. This, coupled with the diminished headroom inside of the average car cabin, made it almost an inconvenience to wear a hat.
Presidents and hats have a very storied history.President John F. Kennedy's inaugurational speech was the first ever to be broadcast to the nation in color. Coming only about 15 years after the first televised presidential speech, the importance of this event was not lost to the public. Wearing a hat to inauguration was commonplace, and even somewhat regarded as tradition. President John F. Kennedy shook this tradition and ditched his top hat after the first few sentences of his inaugural speech.
The impact of this gesture was noticed largely by the young baby boomers, who wished to resist the conformity of their parents and pave their own way.This decision is most widely regarded as the single most impactful event pertaining to the popularity of wearing hats, although the significance was probably increased due to various other social factors at that time.
As time went on, more and more radical hairstyles developed and the use of hair products continued to rise, with 1964 seeing hairspray as the top-selling beauty product. Rather than being decimated by the actions of one man, the hat was metaphorically hung up due to a rise in youth culture in the 1960's and the suppression of formality in all areas of life.
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