Here's The Plan
The lady owners of Paul's Hat Works feel it's time to open a second "offspring" store in New York City! It will be a retail store front, where you can also order custom hats, and where you can get hats cleaned and blocked. All hat making and production will continue to be done in the father store in San Francisco. 1 Paul at a time will be living in NYC in 3 month rotations.
Our Story
Once upon a time a Peruvian man named Napoleon Marquez opened a hat shop in San Francisco in 1918. He grew tired after many decades and passed it on his godson, Kelly Bowling, a giant of a man. Kelly met the ideal candidate in the form of one of his apprentices, Michael Harris. Michael Harris, a landscape painter by origin, got hit hard by the old economy, and decided to throw in the towel. Nobody came a knockin' for 2 years, and this 93 year old hat shop came close to being pieced out and sold across the lands. Just in the nick of time, on January 1st, 2009, 4 ladies stumbled upon the old shop and it was love at first hat. They bought the store from Monsieur Harris, and spent 6 intensive months learning how to make hats, and a couple of other things...Now, 2 1/2 years later, the lady Pauls are going strong, but are ready for a new adventure!
In the 93 years of its existence, Paul's Hat Works has never had another store anywhere ever before, and the current Pauls say "it's time already!" Where in the world is there a city as lovely and as exciting as San Francisco? The clear answer is New York. New York needs us, all those cold heads in classy clothing but no hat to match!
Look out snow and sleet, Paul's Hat Works is coming to the rescue!
Goodbye umbrellas, a long brimmed fedora wins that battle!
We must not wait a moment more, but get to New York as soon as possible, and we need your help to get there.
The Impact
A recent trip to NY by Paul 4 revealed that we would be a perfect fit there. With the weather, the well dressed men, and the hattitude, NY and Paul's will go together like bread and butter. We will not only bring a hat shop and handmade, quality hats, but we will bring our propagation of the concepts of dressing up, of developing etiquette, of throwing quirky, exciting parties, of building solid community!
From another angle, we Pauls need to continue to expand and grow so that we can taste the idea of being full time hatters, and dedicating all of our time to the craft we love; for currently all 4 of us Pauls have other jobs under our brims, and need a kick start from another state full of potential hat wearers in order to make the jump.
But don't you worry, some of the Pauls will always remain in San Francisco and all hats will continue to be hand made in San Francisco.
Our time is now, and our hope lies with you.
What We Need & What You Get
We have lists upon lists of what we need and what we need to do to make this happen. But in order of importance so far:
1) Leasing a new space in New York! Hopefully in the West Village!
2) Installing a new electric boiler for steam so we can increase production to keep up with the NY store.
3) Enough materials to stock the new NY store to the brim (*wink*) with lovely felt and straw hats.
4) Shipping everything we need, machines, blocks, flanges, old radios, hats, the Pauls, to New York. Gulp.
5) Licensing, permits, and all that lovely paperwork that nobody likes to think about.
6) Renovating the space we find and buying the appropriate (hopefully custom and handmade) furnishings for the new store.
7) and much much more.
We are going to New York, there is no stopping us. Even if we do no meet our goal, we will continue forth with our timeline of arrival (in February!), and find a way to open the store in March! However, there's no way we won't meet our goal, because we have so many tantalizing perks, that donating to our cause to Bring the Hat Back will reward you thoroughly before you even get the satisfaction of the reward of seeing our beaming faces from behind the counter of a new store in NY.
Every amount you give us will get you something fantastic! Starting small with a sturdy coffee cup, and ending large with a beautiful (and sturdy) beaver felt custom hat. You can't go wrong. And no amount is too big.
If you donate or help us, we will be putting your name up on our New York walls.
Other Ways You Can Help
Tough times for your pocketbook too? We understand completely. You can give us a good boost just by posting this to any of your social networking pages and other online media, twitter, facebook, email, youtube, or you could hand write letters about it to everyone you know too, that's more in line with our old school ways of doing things.
