Move and Shake: Solidarity Wears a Hat

Oakland, CA, the town in which O’Lover Hats was born and continues to thrive in is a people’s town, full of entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity as well as mind expanding diversity and creativity.  The energy here has been electric these days, with our globally broadcast Occupy Oakland movement and the November 2nd General Strike that boasted 10′s of thousands marching, closing down Broadway, the City Center and eventually the Port, the 5th largest in the country.  There has been violence yet the most palpable sentiment is passion and self respect in the demand that an inequitable economic system be reexamined for reconstruction.

The current occupy movement links with the lineage of activists and lay people rising up to oppose inequality.  As a hatmaker and social historian, I am interested in how hats have both been a visual emblem for these movements as well as a vehicle in themselves for political dissent.

Emmeline Pankhurst Addresses Crowd

It wasn’t long ago that women had no voice in the political sphere, but to influence their husbands behind closed doors.  1903 was when the votes-for-women movement exploded in England and North America.  In the early years of the 20th century, the suffregettes, generators for voting equality, looked sharp in hats while they swarmed the streets in protest, were beatup and arrested by police and held their stance that women were citizens and deserved to have their voice be heard in the political arena.

Though at this time hats were worn daily by all, rather than for political sentiment, the images of these women in their hats engenders them as participants in society, thus subliminally affirming their cause.  While fighting for rights, their proper dress positions them to be self respecting amidst inhumane opposition.

A cultural realm where hats have boldly made political statement is that of stage and vaudeville.  In hats’ lengthy relationship with human heads, they have consistently distinguished both class and character and consequently been a prop to poke fun and comment on the social stratosphere.

The earliest vaudeville hat acts, known as “chapeaugraphy” involving a single performer with a large felt brim with a hole in the middle.  The artist would quickly twist and turn and manipulate the hat into a variety of shapes to create caricatures, sometimes as many as fifty in a ten minute performance.  These shows were riotously funny to crowds and held great popularity at different times from the 1750′s to the early 20th century.  Like most humor, it was the tension between saying what is obvious, but not always appropriate, providing the public with acts that highlight the taboo of rich and poor.

The bowler, one of the few hats consistently chosen by stage performers, was emphatically employed by Charlie Chaplin in his class satires during the 1920s and 30s.  His worn out, beaten hat brought emphasis to the yearning for dignity of down and out common men.  It infused his disheveled and trodden on characters with an ironic sense of importance.  These political dimensions rode heavy beneath the comedy, making the bowler a charged image that is still used today.

The beret, a hat of Basque origins and romantically associated with the French where it was commonly worn, was transformed into an emblem of revolution through the image of guerilla fighter, Che Guevara.  Though the hat is used by special military forces worldwide, due to Che’s iconic status it is also revered as a symbol for one who stands up for the people.  It was chosen by the Guardian Angels who patrol urban streets worldwide to offer protection to civilians from crimes and injustices.

The beret was officially part of the Black Panther movement, supporting the guerilla position of these determined activists who stood for justice from the police brutality and systemic racism rampant in the 60′s and 70′s.  Founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, the group held headquarters in Oakland, Ca.  Though these days, here in Oakland, one is as likely to see a brightly colored mohawk as a personal political statement, I would love to see the 99% movement maintain a lineage with previous local protest movements, such as the Panther Party.  O’Lover Hats will be spreading solidarity by carrying the People’s Beret through the winter.  You can purchase one of these black wool hats at any of O’Lover Hats upcoming shows.  Make it a statement to share with the world.

The Life of a Dying Art

“You’re a hat maker? Now, that’s a dying art!” people say to me on occasion when we meet. There is a rich history of art forms dying as culture changes and today use of the term dying art is rampant, attached to an odd array of subjects from proofreading to stir fry, stenography, customer service, penmanship, kimono making, hanger flying, ballet, piano tuning, cursive and high school dissection.

The overuse of this sexy term does not dilute the powerful significance that art continues to hold, and though presently we are collectively experiencing expansive change, the death of various arts should not be feared or quickly assumed.

Today any finely expressed skill is often said to be art.  Art has become the catchall term for the best quality of work, referring to almost anything done with intention to do it well and with attention to detail and flow.  Placing a myriad of professional work on the same linguistic playing field as monumental paintings or sculptures indicates that artistic inclinations are common and seek various outlets.

Knowledge of 30,000 year-old Paleolithic cave paintings in France shines light to Homo sapiens’ longstanding drive to create art in the quest to bring greater significance to life. Art taps into an unspoken language and is a translation of the unseen to the seen.  No matter how many things are called art, it will always maintain a shimmer of mystery around it.  It holds an elusive yearning, an attunement to the sacred.  We talk about dying arts, not dead art because while form is tenuous, art is immortal.

There must be a reason for an art form to exist.  With the current rate of change in how people are working, communicating and spending their time, many modes of human expression are dramatically shifting.  If conveying one’s art, whatever it may be, is part of living a meaningful life then all the hype around dying arts sounds either like clamorous fear of change or a fascination with morbidity.  A dying civilization obsessed with death.

One look around the San Francisco Bay Area and you clearly see, hat making is not dying but experiencing a renaissance.  If you, like me, are intrigued with old arts, why not take a hat blocking workshop or visit the amazing upcoming local hat designer market.  Your experience of creativity will inspire.

To find out more visit O’Lover Hats website.

Will the Real Panama Hat Please Stand Up

For over 150 years Ecuador’s prized export, the “Panama Hat” has been attributed to another country. The interesting fame these hats have cultivated result from the incredible history Ecuador has in producing some of the oldest known straw hats.  The actual, Ecuadorian name for these hats is “paja toquilla”, a name you can become accustomed to hearing more in the future.

In the mid 19th century, Panama was a lively trading spot, circulating an international array of goods amongst the opportunity seekers that gravitated there.  Ecuador’s masterfully woven hats became popular with gold prospectors and canal builders alike, who hailed from far reaches around the world.  This mass cultivated the name that would become a fixture in public discourse after it premiered at the 1855 World’s Fair in Paris as the “Panama Hat”.

Since its first big entrance into society, this hat has developed an unsurpassed reputation that continues to this day. The quality and durability of the tightest woven “Panama Hats” allows them to command the highest price, tens of thousands of dollars for the most esteemed, by high caliber hat makers such as Brent Black’s Panama Hat Co of the Pacific.

That this illustrious commodity is attributed to another country could vex any nation that was robbed of credit.  Early in the 20^th century, Ecuador attempted to clear up the matter, sending out an international telegram to consulates, “All Panama Hats are made in Ecuador”.  This provoked the haughty response, “We hear that you are now making Panama Hats in Ecuador.”

The curious stamp “Genuine Panama Hat made in Ecuador” can be seen as a polite jab at worldwide disregard for Ecuador’s declarations of ownership.  Weavers and other countrymen are obliged to use the misnomer for which they are secretly famous when talking to foreigners.  Yet amongst themselves, they refer to these hats by the material used that bears the nickname “paja toquilla”.

Like the majority of Ecuadorians, paja toquilla is of mestizo origin, deriving from the plant, ages of crafting it, and the influence of the Spanish colonization of the people.  Paja toquilla has been developed into hats in coastal Ecuador for over 6000 years. As long ago as 4000 BC, Valdivian cultural remains display ceramic figures wearing pointed straw hats.

The start of paja toquilla’s international reputation began when the Spanish conquistadors adopted the hats, praising their lightness, cooling properties and even the ability of the tight weaves to hold water.  The colonizers made record of Ecuador’s tradition, writing of the broad wing like hats of locals, calling them toquillas, after a Spanish word toca, a kind of headdress.

Ecuador’s long history wearing hats continues today in the quotidian dress of indigenous peoples up and down the Andes that split the coastal region from the jungle. Most of the styles are now European in origin due to the Spanish conquest, a brutal period in Ecuador’s history during which factories for straw hat production were set up in the Southern sierra around the city of Cuenca where the conditions were best for weaving the material.

With the development of ecotourism, Ecuador is growing in popularity abroad for its diversity and colorful creative culture.  Might Ecuador take this opportunity with a campaign for an appropriate name?  We can help start the trend by ourselves calling  them paja toquilla hats and subtly work to set the record straight.

to see our current spring styles visit www.oloverhats.com

The Bowler Comes Back

The bowler began as an English hat style, originating back 160 years ago.  Its popularity spread across continents and class till it could be said that it was infused into the subconscious of Western culture.  The bowler broke the mold of what hats were prior to its entrance.  It is no surprise that, as hats are coming back into prominence, it is also enjoying renewed popularity.

Designed by Lock’s of St. James Street in 1850 for Sir Thomas William Coke, this was the first hat to have a hard top, a smart function for its commissioner was a game warden and would frequently go horse riding.   At first it was called the coke hat, yet as it grew in popularity with the London city gents, it took on the name bowler, since the design was in fact being produced by the Bowler family of Southwark.  Soon the bowler was offered in flexible styles as well, bridging a gap between the soft felt styles of the lower classes and the stiffer top hat styles of the upper classes.  The bowler was the first hat to be mass produced, making it more affordable and popular with the middle class.  It enjoyed many decades of prominence in men’s fashion, until it was surpassed by the fedora in the 1920s.

I have heard many people disagree on what is considered a derby and what is a bowler, usually mentioning something to do with differing shapes and sizes.  They are, however, essentially the same hat.  The bowler took on various dimensions at different times, and was called a derby when it came to America.  The derby was worn popularly by all classes of American tradesmen and artisans.

Hats typically denoted rank in society, but the bowler was the first hat worn across class and did not signify one particular mode of business.  Interestingly, it was one of the few hats chosen by stage and vaudeville entertainers, perhaps because it had become an icon of industrialization and power.  Charlie Chaplin most famously employed it to express the poor man’s woes.  Today, it is commonly seen as a comedic hat due to this legacy, yet its popularity with the creative genre of steampunk has now given this style a firm heading in the arts world as well.

The extent to which this hat seeped into the fabric of society is seen in Rene Magritte’s use of it as an cultural emblem in his surrealist paintings.

You can find a nice version of a beaver felt bowler in O’Lover Hats’ Made to Order Fall/Winter line.

Beached Trash Given New Residence

I have loved wandering and exploring beaches since I was a little girl in Seattle.  My family would take day outings to various locations around Puget Sound, and I anticipated the endless discovery that turning over rocks and examining tide pools produced.

Many stories have brought to awareness the damaging effects of the surplus of trash that we people continue to spew, and this fact would not be disputed by anyone who takes a trip to the local beach.  You cannot escape the plastic bags, styrofoam, soda bottles, cigarette buts, and endless varieties of trash lodged between rocks and sticking out from the sand.  Come back again at low tide to see how thick it really is. Much of the polystyrene becomes broken down so it mixes evenly in with the rocks and pebbles, purporting to be a part of the natural landscape.

Oddly, the multicolored plastic can at times appear beautiful, if one forgets the difficult ecological implications of our garbage working its way into the food chain.  I was inspired to clean up beaches in Alameda and incorporate the trash I found into some of my designs.

trim: plastic fishing ball with plastic packing strips

trim : tin lid with tab

trim: plastic bag

To learn more about the effects of our trash on the ecosystem visit the beautiful and disturbing work of photographer Chris Jordan who chronicles the death of pelicans in the most remote places in the Pacific.

A Review by Oaktown Art

Warehouse 416 was written up in Oaktown Art! If you haven’t heard about this local blog, check it out http://oaktownart.com They have been nominated for the 2010 Oakland Indie Awards.

Here’s what they had to say about us….

“I’d been wondering about this place for awhile, ever since I saw its large sign declaring simply “The Warehouse,” and the smaller signs on its doorway for Veloraptors and Toastmasters. I thought “huh… that’s kind of interesting.”

Warehouse 416 is your classic shared warehouse space in Oakland. With thousands of square feet of space, fashioned into shared courtyard gallery space, individual work spaces, offices, a conference room and more, current occupants include a business consultant, photographer, hat-maker extraordinaire, and one scientist. How cool is that?

Every month they open their space for Art Murmur to feature a new show, including works by tenants as well as community members. This past Friday’s show included paintings by Dada/Surrealist-influenced painter Nome Edonna, metal sculptures by Patricia Chavez, a display of the most beautiful hats I’ve ever seen by Elwyn Crawford’s  O’Lover Hats, (I’m saving my nickels up for one of these babies!), fashion and portraiture photography by Angela Scrivani, and much more. The space has lots of interesting eclectic stuff to check out…

Similar to their neighbor across the street, Studio Quercus, they seem to host a pretty eclectic range of events and artists, with DJ’s, live bands, open mic poetry, and more. And if that’s not enough to get you there next month, don’t forget, the incredible Liba Falafel truck will be parked right outside!

Regular Gallery Hours are Thursdays & Fridays from 1pm to 7pm.

You can visit the original post at http://oaktownart.com/2010/04/08/warehouse-416-aka-the-warehouse/

Spring shoots

It was a beautiful sunny day, and if there was a cold March wind blowing, we didn’t shiver.   All ten of us were inside bringing together our talents to capture O’Lover Hats spring styles on film. Check out some snapshots of our crew.

Ida & Brad flirt

Megan Murray makes Brad a bow tie from scrap

Angela Decenzo snaps one of her biz partner Norma Cordova. What a team!

NikolElaine paints Ida's lips

Rebecca Beardsley finalizing another incredible installation of hair

Creative Director, Producer: Elwyn Crawford

Photographers: Decenzo-Cordovo Photography

Models: Ida Marie & B.rad

Stylists: Megan Murray, Racheal Matthews

Makeup: NikolElaine

Hair: Rebecca Beardsley

Attire: Cari Borja, O’Lover Hats

Hats that Sing in the Rain

It will be wet, wet, wet here on the California Coast these next couple of weeks.  Remember that not all hats are rain hats and wet weather can destroy your favorite hat if this is the case.  Hats that hold up to the rain are made from beaver fur felt, wool felt, thick weather-treated leather or vinyl.  If your hat is not made from one of these materials, you can maintain the shape, the size and the appearance of your hat by taking an umbrella out with you as you puddle dive.

If you get stuck in the rain in a felt or fabric hat that does not take well to the wet, pat it dry with a cloth as soon as you can, removing all excess dampness.  If your hat has a flat brim, you can press it with a medium-hot iron using a thin piece of cotton in between so the material does not get damaged from the direct heat of the metal.  This will help flatten out a brim that has become wavy from too much moisture in the past.

If you are caught by a surprise storm and your hat gets soaked, remember if it dries too quickly the hat can shrink.  A good tip is to put it back on your head before it dries completely, so it dries to the shape of your noggin and fits you proper again.  It is no fun to put on a hat that used to bring you joy, only to find that now it gives you a headache. And as a person who wears hats, you like to feel good.  Now let’s go singing and dancing in the rain.

A New Year For Could

As each new year begins I stretch out and take stock of what inspired me most about the previous year and how I can do more of that in the year to come.  Two questions come up again and again in this conversation that in the past seemed to oppose each other.  What must I do to maintain my happiness as a productive, contributing artist?  What must I do to maintain my business?

This balancing act can more broadly be expressed as the desire to do the work one wants versus the understanding that there are things that accompany these efforts that might not be as interesting or fulfilling, but that seem necessary to connect one’s work to the world without and generate income.

One tremendous gain I had last year was realizing that when I use the word “should” in mind or conversation, I take away my free will, the source of creative juiciness.  When I replace the word should with could, I find that the things I do to grow and develop the business of my creative work become more enticing as I allow myself a choice in the matter.  Using the thought and phrase, “I could do this or I could not do this” allows me to slow down and saunter along in wonder, What do I really want and how do I go about creating this?  Is this thing I believe I must do really necessary?  Why do I believe it is necessary?  What else could I do to achieve a similar result that might be more fun or more in line with who I am in this process?

At times when I am faced with things I must do it is wonderful to remember, even in these instances of “have to” there is usually an option.  Oftentimes reframing a “must do” as a choice involves changing my perspective on the action or task in front of me, to remember how it is I brought myself to this place and what the task accomplishes in regards to my life’s dreams and desires.  As I go through the motions, if I focus on why, in the end, this “must do” piece of work is meaningful, then I open up to alternatives in execution that can make it more of a creative act.  Perhaps there is something stylistically that can be done that more rightly reflects my nature.  I have not been stymied yet using this approach.

What do you really want for your creative development this year?  What could you do to activate this?  Replace the word should with could to release your free will and open up to the realm of possibility.  Sometimes the results you seek can be achieved in ways you didn’t anticipate.

The Value of Price

In a conversation with a friend last night, I was told that the price point of my hats made it so she was unable to afford one, though she dearly wanted to own many of them.  She went on to commend me on how great it was that I valued myself enough to charge the prices I do. The truth is that my pricing is a mathematical formula that takes into account what is necessary to create the product (cost of labor, cost of materials) and the cost of bringing this product to you.  Beyond this, the product produced is valuable to our community on multiple points.

Amidst a market inundated with stylish and functional hats that cost between $15 and $65, it might seem like a statement of self worth for a hatter or milliner to charge $150, $250 or $850 for a hat. Though I have developed more self worth to feel it is appropriate to charge prices that are much higher than the mainstream, this is simply what it costs to create this style of hand blocked, high quality straw and fur felt hats.

A product’s price whether it is a new hat or a television, must include some amount to contribute to what is necessary to keep a business running, including items like water, electricity, telecommunications, marketing efforts, repairs and of course, rent.   When you buy something the price reflects not only what is costs to have it made but also must contribute funds to what it costs to operate on a day-to-day basis, while also allowing a small amount to let the business grow, whether that means paying off the inevitable debts incurred getting started or putting money towards purchasing new equipment.

The value of the handcrafting is layered.  We artisans use better materials and take more time to produce our functional objects than those businesses whose production is geared towards a mass market where volume and high profit margins reign.  This country’s economy sways precariously on the stilts of less costly foreign labor. Our landfills compound in size with the waste of cheaply made items that fall apart after a few months.  If loved and cared for by its owner, a well made hat will last through your lifetime and perhaps beyond, becoming representative of your personality and identity to those in your family who might not ever know you.

Like other artisans, my work is an expression of my joy.  Holding a high regard for quality and aesthetics, we artisans aim to put more beauty and distinction into your lives. We see it as our role to share a unique vision of how to create a usable object, so that your senses become refreshed when you encounter our handiwork.  And at the same time the price is simply what it takes for us to be present and continue to bring you something just different enough to make you feel your individuality through your affinities.