We have been lucky enough to be mentioned in another great magazine, New Hampshire Magazine. In the January 2009 issue Aaron Hats gets a nice little plug:

Star Studded
If Barack and Michelle Obama wear hats during the inauguration, or if their two girls do, we predict lines out the door at Aaron Hats, 2729 White Mountain Highway, North Conway.

Customer favorites include; the Indiana Jones brown wool felt for men ($40), classic Stetson Chathams ($145) in six colors, the Betmar cabled tam ($29)-a favorite among starlets, the Kangol cotton twill army cap ($28) and the Kangol Kids 504 wool cap ($40) just to name a few. You might even stumble across a celebrity or two.

You can read the full article at NH Magazine.

A review of the business situation prompts the New York Times thus to remark:

“The business prospects of the country, as indicated by the outlook in this city, which may be regarded as a fair guage, are improving, and in every line of trade, which is not devoted wholly to supplying the luxuries of life, a more hopeful feeling prevails than has been noted for a long time. The general depression which has so long continued has made buyers extremely cautious, but the demand for the necesssaries and conveniences of life is increasing, and dealers in nearly every branch of trade express satisfaction with the present and confidence in the future.”

The above was taken from the September, 1885 issue of The Hatter and Furrier trade magazine. Do you think the Times will be recycling this story in six months?

No, I’m not going to talk about some of our crazy customers. Although some of you make for great story telling. It’s just that things have been absolutely crazy around here. Over the last two to three weeks it’s been getting busier and busier. Both because it’s getting cold and people are buying themselves a hat but also because of Christmas and holiday shoppers ramping up their gift buying. Unfortunately, things have also been breaking around here as we are getting busier. I’ve had to replace our phones in the store as well as our main printer/fax. To top it all off, yesterday being Cyber Monday my laptop died.

Some good news though is that we’ve been getting some good press. We got a mention in yesterday’s Conway Daily Sun and we’ll be included in travel articles in the Boston Globe and New Hampshire Magazine some time in January.

In the end, I guess it all balances out.

John B. Stetson started making hats in 1865 in a small rented room. Stetson later went on to build one of America’s most well-known and successful businesses. The longevity and history of the John B. Stetson Company is based on innovation and quality. John B. Stetson led the hat industry his entire career by designing new hat styles for fashion and function. When it came to quality it was his creed and for the past 130 years it has so stamped the product that the name and the word are synonymous.

Read complete story…

Last weekend when I picked up GQ I also picked up the September issue of InStyle magazine. For the last couple years InStyle has had a good number of hat mentions and a lot of their advertisers include hats in the ads. This month was no different. In fact, I counted at least a dozen advertisements with hats in the ads which doesn’t include all the photos of celebrities wearing hats. The list of advertisers using hats in their ads include DKNY, Burberry, Lord & Taylor, Tiffany & Co., Gap and Neiman-Marcus just to name a few.

The Gap has an ad with a woman wearing a Newsboy (or Newsgirl) cap similar to the Betmar Boy Meets Girl shown here:

Overall, there were two hat styles that appeared several times throughout the magazine. First was an oversized knit hat similar to the Kangol Assimilate Long Pull-On or the Kangol Wave Tex Pull-On. The other style was a felt fedora both in small brims, like the Betmar Femme Fatale, and larger brims.

One style that was missing was military caps. I found this a little odd because it’s still a big customer favorite here in the store. Maybe they’re on their way out after a couple years of very strong sales.

Whatever your style, get a hat on.

Aaron

In the October ‘08 issue of GQ magazine there’s a great article about hats and caps. It’s a great primer on hats if you know nothing about buying or wearing a hat. It discusses some good points about dressing up or dressing down a fedora. In the “old days” there was no such thing as dressing down in a fedora for most men but today most of our customers who are buying a fedora are wearing it with casual attire instead of a suit and tie.

I could go on and on about the article but there’s actually an even better article in the magazine entitled “How to be a well-dressed, well-mannered, well-spoken, 21st century gentleman”. Since I recently wrote about Hat Rules I thought the article was relevant to being polite and a gentleman with or without a hat on. Here are a couple of my favorite tips they gave:

- Don’t be the guy who wears a ski jacket over your suit coat. Go out and buy an appropriate topcoat.
- Don’t be afraid to open a door for a lady.
- Lose all the gadgets on your belt and pull that headset out of your ear unless you’re driving.

I could go on and on but this is one of the few times I really recommend you go out and buy the magazine. Ladies, go buy it for your guy and men, go out and buy it, read it and actually apply a couple of the things you read. We could all be a little more gentlemanly in this day and age.

Aaron

If you’re looking for books about hats, hat making and hat history you can find a great collection on our sister-site, The Hat Site. Some of the featured books include Hatless Jack, Classic Millinery Techniques and Stetson Hats & The John B Stetson Hat Company. You can find all these and many more on the Books On Hats page. After shopping there you can browse over to the Hats In Art page where you can find reproduction hat advertising posters and original prints featuring the most elegant, funky and classic hats of all time.

Your purchases on that site will help to support a web site dedicated to educating people about hats and keeping the headwear industry alive.

Aaron

In the June issue of Accessories Magazine there’s a great timeline of hat milestones through the last 200 years. I thought I’d share some of those with you today.

1797: The top hat makes its debut in London.
1900’s: Women wear some of the largest hats in history - a sign of wealth and status.
1920’s: “The decade of the hat.” Women’s styles go from large statement pieces to small cloches. To wear a cloche correctly, it must be pulled over the eyes, making the wearer lift up the head to see.
1930’s: The bowler becomes a symbol during the Industrial Revolution, representing the modern middle class.
1930’s to 1945: The key hat of this period is the fedora, which is frequently worn tipped down over one eye.
1950’s: Hats are a must-have for women who want to achieve a perfectly polished, ladylike look.
1960’s: First lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s pillbox hat becomes her personal trademark, and gains fame worldwide.
1970’s: Floppy hats stand out as a key style of the times.
1980’s: Diana, Princes of wales, uses hats to achieve a color-coordinated look with her apparel, and is beloved as a fashion icon.

Do your part for history and get a hat on.

Aaron

The new Aaron Hats commercial is finished and ready for your viewing. This is a 90 second spot that gives a highlight of our store. A lot of our customers who never make it to New Hampshire really enjoy this because it gives a little glimpse into our operation here. If you happen to be in our neck of the woods you can find this commercial on RSN TV 16. I hope you enjoy it.

Twice a year we shoot a new tv commercial that runs locally here in the Mt. Washington Valley of New Hampshire. We were able to shoot the new commercial this morning and hope to have it edited and loaded here by next Friday or shortly after. I like to show the commercial on the blog because it shows the store and many of our best selling hats to those of you who may never get to come visit us in person. This time around we dedicated a large block of the commercial to the Tilley hats but also highlighted Indiana Jones hats, Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney hats as well as Ivy and Newsboy caps, Stetson hats and our great collection of hats for women.

Stay tuned,

Aaron