That Way Hat's Blog

After the success of the Hat Makers’ Directory, we are making a new free directory of Hat Stores with physical locations. The new directory for any store that carries hats will include a map of the store’s location. There will be changes to Hat Makers Directory too so that Hat Makers will be able to show in their own listing which stores sell their hats. Then people who want to buy a particular hat maker’s hat can go to the store to try one on. The sign up below is for any store that wants to be included.

Wholesaling hats was one of the many topics the four interlocutors of the Hat Meetup discussed yesterday over drinks and snacks at the first meeting of the NYC Hat Makers Meet Retailers. Other topics were more personal about what we are doing and how we got there.

The four of us enjoyed the chance for an intimate chat about our passion (millinery). The location, Pranna, turned out better than expected with a comfortable side nook in an elegant room and reasonable prices . . . as long as you followed the happy hour menu like a falcon hawk whose hood is lifted watches a sparrow. We will look forward to the next meeting on Tuesday, April 10th at 7:00pm.

Come join us!

We are finally starting to beta test http://hapful.com which is a website that will give free links to anything you are selling on your blog. It will also manage your checkout process, payment, inventory and customers, making it really easy to sell through your blog. It is like a mini ebay (minus the auctions) with the listings linking to your blog.

One of our more popular hats, perhaps since it is more unusual, is our all wool purple bowler. One recent purchaser was an actual well established dance company which purchased many all at the same time. Here I am going to list it on the blog using Hapful. Lets see how it looks.

And here is the new version of the same product:

That Way Hat is launching a new free directory of milliners and hat makers and designers. It will be online. Free to list. Free to search. Free for everyone.

The directory is still being tested in beta – you can sign up on the form below and we will email you a link to the directory – you can be among the first to try it. And it will be a permanent listing (only for milliners, hat makers and designers). You can edit or delete your listing at any time.

The advantages of including yourself in the directory are these:

• You get to show off a picture of your work and a description of your company.
• You get a free permanent link to your website from your page in our directory.
• You get more customers, website visitors.
• If you are in early you will benefit from our early advertising of the new directory.

Other hat directories cost you money – ours is free. Why are we doing this? We want to create a community of hat makers. (Added bonus: small hat makers will be able to sell up to 5 hats per month on our website for free).

Edit January 10, 2012: The directory has finally launched! You can sign up here!

Announcing a free app that will let you sell on your own blog: it will also give you lots of free link juice to each item you list.

This is not another “web store”. You list up to 20 products free each in its own blog post (or you can fit a few products into each post). The app lets you set up your image and description and pricing, will manage your email notifications and your cart and shipping. You copy and paste the javascript code in the html view of your blog post. Very easy. The benefit is: you can sell more on your own wordpress or drupal or other blog pages without paying auction sites their listing and per item fees.

The seo / link juice benefit to this addin app we are not going to explain until it is released. At that point it will be clear how. The app will not only help you sell your product more easily, it will also definitely drive traffic to your blog.

If you would like to sign up to be one of the alpha or beta testers for this free app, please fill out the form below. We will notify you when the widget is ready for you to try.

The advantages of using this javascript application are these:

• It is free, unlike ebay or most web stores
• It makes your blog front and center, you won’t be sending your buyer to a dedicated storefront.
• You can integrate your personal views with your sales process by posting items right into the blog — that makes for an interesting read
• You will get link juice to your blog through our special free listings (think ebay with links to your blog instead of to your post on ebay’s own site)

PLEASE GIVE SOME DIGG LOVE!

Do you have a hat that your brother buried under a pile of clothes and then lay on for a week? Or did something even worse happen to it like your kid ran over it with his toy cement roller? (Hey I don’t know they make those either, but if I were a kid again, I’d love to have one!) Well, there is hope, even if it is felt wool. . . . Lately I have been uncrushing some felt wool hats. This is how to do it – it should also work on many other kinds of hats.

A hatmakers’ secret is that if you steam the hat with lots of steam for a few minutes it may regain its shape. And if doesn’t regain its original shape by itself, you can help it along with care not to burn your fingers. You should shape it while it is still warm from the steam. To keep your fingers safe you may consider some tools like spoons or dull knives to press against the hat. Most hats were finished with some kind of material just for hats (called sizing) that acts to stiffen the hat. You can reactive that stiffening material with steam. There is no need to add more.

What sources can you use for steam? Irons set to steam mode, tea kettles on the stove, electric tea pots that stay on steam mode and hot steam humidifers are some possibilities. Put the hat in the flow of the steam to heat and wet it and then pull it away to shape it how you want it. Some kinds of hats will respond faster than others. But almost all could benefit.

So if your hat was ruined, don’t panic! Hats are surprisingly resilient.

The dictionary says that a milliner is a person who makes or sells women’s hats. But many hat makers disagree. Many say that a milliner is a person who is far advanced in the art of fine hat making. Simply selling hats in a hat store or making run of the mill women’s hats would not qualify you to be called a milliner; you would be a shop keeper or a crafts woman who makes hats, but not a milliner. Being called a milliner implies a high degree of Mastery of the Art.

“He is not a milliner, just a hat seller” and “She is no milliner, she’s still got a lot to learn before being true master of hat making” are phrases that ring out across the ateliers of hatters. I have heard it said that the dictionary simply needs to update its antiquated notion of what milliner is, since it’s definitions are no longer true. Don’t even ask if you are a hat designer. That is several steps from a milliner.

Indeed people who hold this rarefied view of what a milliner are gatekeepers who defend the realm of the milliner with so much vigor that few people do dare to call themselves a “milliner” unless they are in fact far advanced in the art of hat making. Those who do may be put on notice that they are violating the spirit of the Art

Therefore the following dictionaries are hereby put on notice of the need to update their definitions:

Dictionary.com has definitions from Random House and Collins:

Random House Dictionary: “A person who designs, makes, or sells hats for women.”

Collins English Dictionary: “A person who makes or sells women’s hats.”

Merriam Webster has this definition: “A person who designs, makes, trims, or sells women’s hats”

American Heritage Dictionary states: “One that makes, trims, designs, or sells hats.”

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary has this definition: “A person who makes or sells women’s hats”

They were Milanese – The word “milliner” originated in the 16th Century from a word meaning a native of Milan, Italy or dealer of goods from Milan. The Online Etymology Dictionary (quoted in Dictionary.com ) states: mid-15c., vendor of fancy wares, especially those made in Milan, the Italian city famous for straw works, fancy goods, ribbons, bonnets, and cutlery. Meaning of “one who sells women’s hats” may be from 1520s, certainly in use by 18c.

Closets are wonderful because they keep our clothing and accessories out of sight and organized, but can become cluttered. What’s wrong with a cluttered, unorganized closet? It prevents you from opening the door and grabbing an item you need; instead you are left searching through the mess wondering where that item could be. You don’t have to spend countless minutes each morning searching through your closet, instead organize it. Organizing a closet allows you simply to grab your clothing and accessories without the frustration of searching for them.

I don’t know about you, but a pet peeve of mine is when I have to get a ladder to find a hat in the top of my closet. Here’s my method to keep the closet organized and the hats more handy.

We need access to the whole closet, so start by removing all items –clothing, belts, purses and hats – from your closet.

Purchase cup hooks and install them in your closet. A great place to install cup hooks is on the inside of the closet door and the walls in the closet. Often times, walls inside a closet are left bare, instead use the walls to store belts and hats. Hang your belts on the walls inside the closet and your hats on the inside of the closet door. Hats hung on the walls may be pressed against by clothing, so put only your crushable hats there.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you have a hard time seeing inside your closet? If this is the case, install a light fixture. Being able to turn on a light, and see inside your closet helps a lot. Reorganizing your closet weekly can be avoided simply by being able to see inside it. Lights prevent clothing or accessories from getting lost after falling or being placed in the wrong area.

What’s another place in a closet that’s typically is bare, but could be used to organize items such as shoes? The floor! We’ve organized the walls of the closet,, now it’s time to organize the floor. The floor in your closet can be used to organized hats as well as shoes.

Do you have hat boxes? High end hats used to come in hatboxes, allowing you store them neatly. But you probably don’t have those old 1950′s hat boxes. Now you can purchase hat boxes in some stores like Pottery Barn. They are often expensive, so consider using less costly plastic boxes instead. Place the boxes on the closet floor from largest to smallest. Once you have organized the hats you store in boxes, also place a shoe organizer on the floor in the closet. A shoe organizer creates extra room for more shoes.

Last, replace clothes. If you have shelves, fold your shirt, shirts and pants in groups, for example all short sleeve shirts in one area and long sleeve shirts in another. Then hang all your dresses and the clothes you couldn’t fold. Your should now be able to find everything in a jiffy.

Organizing closets could become addicting because once you have an organized closet, you’ll appreciate it so much that you’ll want to keep them all that way.

by Stephanie Nolan, Guest Blogger