JON CARAMANICA GOES SHOPPING: Humble Chapeau Editon
June 30, 2011
This week, Critical Shopper Jon Caramanica eschews the one-store concept and takes himself and Times music critic Ben Ratliff on a tour of New York City's most prominent hat shops. It's an exhaustive effort spurred by the shopper's concerns that by putting on a hat he will turn into his father.
Theoretically, this makes Caramanica a lot older than The Shophound had guessed. Even when we were a tiny Shoppuppy, most men (including our dad) had long since stopped wearing hats around on a daily basis. Grandpas, maybe, but hats were essentially seen as relics. And yet, they have endured, supported by the elderly, the theatrical and those whose are cold in the winter. We would still consider them something of a novelty item, but Caramanica has hit way too many men's hat shops for them to still be merely a superfluous affectation, and that's not even counting the ones he had no time for.
Not surprisingly, our headgear-averse shopper is converted by a costly example of hatmaking artistry at Worth & Worth,
...our clerk began to show off the marquee hand-woven Montecristis, the most expensive of which, billed as “museum” quality, can run over $10,000. I took a middle-of-the-road one and made for the mirror. It sat beautifully on my head, wide enough to frame my face, not so tall as to be overwhelming and disruptive. I was disinclined to remove it, even if it did appear to demand white pants and sandals I would never wear. I let it go reluctantly.
Apparently not unlike jewelry, the finest hat money can buy will make a believer out of anyone, but at the end of a grueling two-day hat spree, Caramanica has yet break down and buy one. Perhaps another blizzard this Winter will put him over the edge.
Critical Shopper: So, Do I Look Like My Father in This Hat? By Jon Caramanica (NYTimes)
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