JJ HAT CENTRE IN NEW YORK CITY GETS A NICE HAT RAP

We just happened to stop by J.J. HAT CENTER on Fifth Avenue in NYC and owner Aida O’Toole told us that she is selling Fedoras very well. She did tell us, however that Western Headwear is not selling very well. (Perhaps it’s the lack of parking spots for horses in Manhattan). The best sellers at this regal Fifth Avenue location are Borsalino fedoras, especially the Como, The Film, The Verdi, The Antonio, The Marco and the Nobel.

The next day J.J. Hat Center was written up by a website in the UK called, news.telegraph. The article heralds headwear as making a comeback with young people. We thought you might want to read it:

Hats back as rappers copy cool cats of jazz

Old-fashioned hats are experiencing a remarkable American boom as thirtysomethings copy the look of both modern rappers and jazz stars from the 1950s.

Decades after a bare-headed President Kennedy sounded the death knell for traditional hats, sales of homburgs, pork pie hats and bowlers, known in the US as derby’s, have doubled in two years.

Brimming with hats: Marc Williamson, manager of JJ Hat Centre, with a range of traditional styles

"The trend began a few years ago with homburgs when people wanted to dress like rappers such as Biggy Smalls and Tupac Shakur," said Marc Williamson, 36, manager of the JJ Hat Centre on New York's Fifth Avenue.

The store, founded in 1911, is the city's oldest hat shop and its paneled walls are lined with fedoras that have teardrop, diamond and round crowns, some with a centre crease, others a pinch front.

"The rappers were borrowing from the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, such as Shaft, with that whole big hat, suit, cape and walking-stick pimp look taking off," Mr Williamson said.

Last month's US edition of Vanity Fair, devoted to rap fashion, pictured singers in a variety of trilbys and Burberry flat caps.

Among those photographed in antique British-style clothes designed by Ralph Lauren were Adam Yauch and Mike Diamond of the Beastie Boys, both in pork pie hats. Snoop Doggy Dogg was shown playing croquet in a ribboned boater plus cravat, blazer, cricket sweater and trainers.

Another hip hop star, André 3000, has in recent months bought a straw hat, a newsboy hat, a captain's cap and a Tyrol hat from JJ's.

"The hat and cane look harks back to the era of the classic gangster, with a smart and sharp look, portraying an image of success and power," said Damon Dash, the rap producer who has his own Savile Row suit line, the Damon Dash collection.

"So when you've really made it, that look sums it all up, showing style, class and supremacy."

There is still a demand for hats among elderly men, who have never stopped wearing them. But the boom market is the 30-45 age range.

Where older customers buy a hat once a year, or every two years, younger ones buy up to seven a year. The biggest seller is the stingy-brim hat worn by the jazz pianist Thelonius Monk in the Fifties, a pork pie hat noted for its narrow brim.

The singers Usher and Justin Timberlake, and the actor Jamie Foxx, who played Ray Charles in last year's film Ray, all wear stingy-brim hats, and sales have tripled in the last year.

The other strong seller is the newsboy hat, or the eight-quarter hat, the squashy, round hat divided into eight cake-slice-shaped pieces.

Both the newsboy and the flat cap, or ivy cap as it's known in America, are also popular among women.