Tip of the Hat
For Texas’ hat makers, engaging in a craft from a bygone era is as much about pride as love
If you’re not from Texas, the idea of a shop specializing in custom, handmade cowboy hats may seem as antiquated as the image of the cowboy himself. But while cheap, mass-produced cowboy hats are available to consumers worldwide, custom cowboy hat makers have staked their livelihoods on the belief that a true Texan knows the value of quality over quantity. Luckily for them, they’re right. Admittedly, the demand for custom cowboy hats isn’t as high as it once was, when long days of farming and cattle driving required reliable protection from the scorching Texas heat. Although the industry’s heyday has come and gone, the custom hat maker still manages to make an honest living, doing so out of a genuine love for the craft.
Today, custom hat-making operations remain a sparse but notable pres- ence throughout the Lone Star State, reliably found in small, historic towns where customers are most attuned to the effort meticulously crafted into each hat. “A lot of people don’t understand the amount of work that goes into ’em. That’s why it was a no-brainer to open up shop here in Stephenville, the Cowboy Capital of the World,” says James Andrae, owner of Capital Hatters. “Yet I still get people who are amazed we actually build the hats in-shop.”
Considering a custom hat can fetch a price between $300 and $1,200 (depending on the quality of the material) and take anywhere from one to three months to complete, having a customer base that understands the diligent process isn’t just pleasant coincidence for a hat maker — it’s a crucial part of the business. “I have people come in who are used to see- ing $20 hats at Walmart,” says Cameron Morris, owner and operator of Waco’s Standard Hats. “They’re amazed to see a hat for $800. But the way I see it, you get what to pay for. For $20, you’re getting 20 bucks worth of work out of your hat; for $800 you’re getting something you can pass down to your grandkids.”
For the customers who can appreciate the custom hat- maker’s dedication, the finished product is worth every cent. From taking the first measurements to applying the finishing touches, each hat is painstakingly crafted by the shop’s owner with the kind of attention to detail that’s almost nonexistent in today’s day and age. “There’s a unique nostalgia about the business,” Morris says, “which is what resonates with customers.” That nostalgia certainly isn’t disingenuous. Custom hat making is an industry that’s antiquated by design: the equipment used in the building process is, on average, more than 70 years old. “This kind of machinery hasn’t been manufactured since the ’30s, when demand was higher,” says Damon Albus, owner of Abilene’s 5D Hat Shop. “There’s a lot of truth to the old adage, ‘They don’t make ’em like they used to.’”
With the machinery itself effectively an antique, it’s no surprise some hat shops remain in the family, passed down from generation to generation. Just ask 28-year-old Thomas Bradley Peters, current owner of Fort Worth’s historic Peters Brothers Hat Shop, a business started in 1911 by his great-great-grandfather Thomas Peters. “I always knew I’d take over one day,” Peters says. “Grandpa had my father building hats when he was 13 years old, and he stepped me behind the steamer machine at age 4.” While it’s not uncommon for some hat makers to inherit their skills and operations, recent years have seen the opening of a number of first-generation hat shops, by men with no prior hat-making experience. “I get asked a lot if I inherited this shop,” says Capital Hatters’ James Andrae, himself a first-generation hatter. “It’s becoming something of a trend.”
PASSING THE HAT James Andrae educates son Slade at Capital Hatters in Stephenville.
Given the high overhead costs — and the countless hours one must commit before opening shop — one can’t help but wonder what leads someone to boldly pursue hat making as a livelihood. For newcomers like Albus or Morris, however, the answer was simple: job satisfaction … or lack thereof. Before opening their respective hat shops, both men held respectable jobs: Albus as a parole officer, Morris as a construction manager. Both jobs paid well enough, yet the men felt something was missing. “I got tired,” Morris says. “I realized there’s more to life than working a job you don’t enjoy.”
Albus and Morris would look to hat making as a cure for their nine-to-five blues. “Working with my hands was a passion,” Albus says. “I felt my calling was hat making, kind of like a preacher feels his calling.” For anyone aspiring to break into the business, hat-making is seen as a uniquely Texan occupation, a product of a romantic, bygone era where a person could make an honest living through satisfying, hands-on work. “I’ve always loved making people happy, building things and working with my hands,” Morris says. “This job encompasses it all into one. You know what they say: ‘If you do what you love, the money will come.’”
The road to becoming a custom hat maker, however, requires much more than a yearning for a more satisfying job. For the aspiring hat maker not born into the industry, there’s little recourse to gather the equipment necessary to begin operation. The most common method is to wait until an established hat maker goes out of business (as was the case for 5D, Standard and Capital Hatters). Should no operations be on the market, a hat maker’s last resort is to assemble their setup piece by piece, something Albus experienced firsthand after losing his operation to an accidental fire. “Let me tell you,” Albus says, “you end up writing a lot of individual checks.”
Once a hat maker finally has a complete setup, the real challenge begins — learning the craft. Even if one has the time and energy to put toward the study, finding the means often proves a headache. “You can’t just google ‘how to make a hat’ — it’s not a widely taught skill like an auto mechanic,” Morris says. “It’s hard to find someone who’ll sit there and teach you.” Since so few resources are available, a sizable amount of a hat maker’s knowledge is self taught, with trial and error ultimately proving the most valuable mentor. “It’s frustrating — anybody who’s shaped a hat before will tell you it’s not easy,” Morris adds. “But you pick up certain tricks along the way. I probably learned the most by making mistakes and trying to fix ’em.”
Though it may seem like a hat maker’s education is complete once he knows enough to open his doors to the public, any experienced hatter will tell you that’s where the education truly begins. Those who truly excel at the craft find it both difficult to learn and impossible to master. “There’s always different techniques to figure out,” Peters says. “Anybody who considers themselves a master — to me — is just selling themselves short. I don’t think even my grandfather would consider himself a master.” Considering Peters’ grandfather was once tasked with building a custom hat for President John F. Kennedy during his last trip to Texas, it would seem perfection is unreachable in the hat-making industry. For many, that unobtainable pursuit of perfection is hat making’s biggest draw. “I hope I’m still learning new ways to approach the craft in 20 years — that will mean I’m still trying to better myself,” Morris explains. “I don’t ever want to get complacent. I tend to get bored with things I’ve mastered.”
HAT IN HAND Cameron Morris, owner of Standard Hat Works in Waco, applying finishing touches to one of his custom hats.
In fact, no two hat makers are exactly alike in their methods. Through years of consistent learning and fine-tuning, hat makers eventually develop their own personal style that separates them from the rest. “Everybody does their own thing,” Andrae says. “Everybody has their own way of tweaking … how they measure, or how they finish a hat … that’s theirs and theirs alone. Another hat maker may find my method incorrect, but it’s how I do it, and it’s what works for me. So right or wrong, it’s still my style. That individual artistry brings loyal customers for each individual hat maker. For the customer, that kind of personalized attention to detail justifies a custom hat’s price tag and waiting period. You’re getting a hand-built hat that fits like a glove as opposed to buying a size,” Peters explains. “We don’t put sizes in our customs at all. We build straight to the temple to get the size right.” Adds Albus: “It truly is your hat. You pick the height of the crown, the size of the brim, the trim on your hatband, whatever you want. These days there’s such a mentality of, ‘If I want a hat, I want it right now.’ In the custom world, people want a quality, personalized product, and they’re willing to wait for it.”
The amount of creativity and variation involved with the process, coupled with the years of practice it takes to simply become passable, qualifies hat making as nothing short of an art form. From a customer’s point of view, to purchase a custom hat is to become part of that artistic process. In that way, buying a custom hat isn’t unlike commissioning a portrait — it’s very personal for a customer … it’s a reflection of who they are. Like a painter must understand his subject’s essence before he can create their portrait, a hat maker must make a genuine, human connection with his customer before he can begin his work. “You have to get a feel for the customer, get the knack of what he wants,” Andrae says. “Everybody who walks through the door is a distinct character, and that character is portrayed through the hat you make them.” That astute eye for humanity is why every successful hat maker is, at his core, a people person. “Meeting new people every day is what drew me to this job,” Albus says. “I’m looking to make a friend out of each deal I make.”
The hat makers’ promise of quality has attracted a fair share of notable individuals to Texas’ custom hat shops over the years. Larry Hagman, Wilford Brimley … even members of the band Guns N’ Roses have come from far and wide to get their custom hats the Texas way. Texas’ custom hatters have pretty much seen it all. “You ever heard of Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey — you know, the little critter who dresses up like a cowboy and rides a border collie at rodeos around the country? We made a tiny hat for him once,” Andrae says, laughing. “It wasn’t any bigger than a coffee cup.”
That same sincere customer service has, over time, turned the neighborhood hat shop into a popular hangout for locals and tourists alike. “People compare it to a bar without the drinks,” Morris says. “That’s the kind of welcoming laidback atmosphere it is. Folks enjoy coming just to hang out and shoot the bull without having a used car salesman mentality thrown at them. On occasion, we’ll even have musicians for whom we’ve made hats for in the past stop by and play a few songs to kill time before their big show.”
Should you ever find yourself in town, wanting to see the old-time craft for yourself, you’re in luck. Because hat makers take great pride in their craft, they’re often eager to share their process with others. “I’m the kind of guy who, if a craft is made by hand, I want to see how it’s done,” Albus says. “That’s always been important to me … to let people see what goes on in the workshop. That’s why I say ‘Come on in! And if you’ll bring me a cold Dr Pepper, I’ll let you watch the process for hours!’ I want people to be knowledgeable about what we do. I’ve got two glass doors looking into the workshop — you can walk back there anytime if you got a question or just wanna see how something’s made.”
It’s plain to see that any hat maker worth his weight has a genuine love for his craft. For a maker, it’s not just a job … it’s a continuing source of pride. “Retirement isn’t even a flicker of a thought in my head. Like I said, this is my calling,” reports Albus, “Our doors will remain open until we don’t have any more customers.” Although the demand for custom hats may not be as high as it was in the past, hat makers continue to make an honest living on the merit of their skill and craftsmanship alone. That’s because, like the cowboy himself, today’s hat maker is resilient — with a determined passion for his craft you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere outside of the Lone Star State.
