There was a time when men wouldn't leave the house without a hat.
The fedora became kind of the most popular hat of all time.
It was all fedoras from 1910 to 1950 through 1962, and then the hat was dead.
The big story is that JFK didn't wear his top hat to the inauguration ball, and that's when the hat died.
There's different theories on whether or not that's accurate, but it is a part of the story.
My reason that I like to think is that in the mid to late 60s and 70s, people really started rebelling against what their parents were doing.
They didn't want to look like their father in the normal business attire, and I think that's finally coming full circle where my generation now is rebelling against the casual look of their parents.
Most of the hats that we see in the market are an impersonation of a hat, like they give you the sense that you're wearing a hat, but all of the functional qualities it had originally aren't there.
So the store was opened in 1918, and it was then called City Hat Works, opened by a man named Napoleon Marquez.
He went by Paul, I believe, to Americanize himself. He did not name the hat shop after himself.
In 1950, his godson, Kelly Bowlings, changed the name to Paul's Hat Works and moved it to this location now.
In the 70s, Kelly apprenticed several men, young men, and picked the worthiest one as per tradition, which was Michael Harris.
And then in 2009, myself, three other women bought the hat shop from Michael Harris.
A lot of people were interested in the shop, as you can imagine, taking the hat boxes and sending them over to London or other hatters in the East Coast wanting the blocks, and so this place was going to be pieced out.
He was looking for someone that wanted to continue the legacy of Paul's Hat Works.
He told me he's been trying to sell the business for two years, and I told him I would buy it from him with three other people.
He called us and said, hey, I have something that's going to change our life.
The four of us came back the next day and sort of fell in love.
We saw an opportunity here, but also saw that no one else was going to take it, and if we didn't take it, this place was going to die.
We came to the fairly immediate conclusion that the name was too important to change because of the history, but we kind of had to figure out how to make it our own.
Everybody that owned Paul's Hat Works has been called Paul. Kelly was called Paul. Michael was called Paul.
So we all go by Paul, and it's kind of funny.
Paul is kind of like this other entity. It's like this Paul's Hat Works mentality.
When you put the right hat on the right person, there's a harmonizing effect.
It kind of extends your personality an extra inch or two.
And suddenly a person sees themselves completely differently. All of a sudden there's all these new possibilities that they could do while wearing this hat.
Their face will light up. They stand up taller. They'll even start dressing nicer.
It also makes people consider everything else they're doing and touching and wearing.
I've got this really high quality hat on my head. It's made of good material. It's serving a really great function.
Let me question this other thing that I wear that I never questioned before and inspect its materials or think about how long it's going to last me.
So it's pretty neat how a hat can change a person.
So when we decided to buy this hat shop, we knew we were buying it in a bad time economically.
We had to kind of go in it full force. So we created our motto, which is bringing the hat back.
We're bringing back certain traditions that are good and certain manners and certain amount of courteousness that people have forgotten.
And the idea that dressing up is a sign of respect.
So we're kind of bringing back this whole movement that is centered around the time when people used to wear hats.
I think there's more of an awareness about the quality of what you're buying.
Making investments in well made high quality goods says a lot about your ethics and your lifestyle.
People are starting to realize that it is worth it to invest on something that will last you for 50 years than to keep buying the same $40 item and throwing it away.
That's really important to the four of us here.
The hats that we make and sell are designed to last for 70 to 150 years. You're bringing it back for a very long time.
Basically this could be your companion for life and can even be passed on as a family heirloom.
There's a picture that we have in the front of the shop and it's from groundbreaking at the Winner's Fair in Golden Gate Park.
And in that photo there's a sea of men wearing bowlers, top hats, women are just wearing beautifully large brimmed hats and everyone there is wearing hats.
And we want to see that happen again in San Francisco.
Bring the hat back!
