It feels as if you’ve stepped into a time warp; historic pieces surround you as you walk into what feels like a museum. Tables full of hat bodies are scattered throughout, enveloped by endless rows of various hats. Movie posters, playbills, and thank you cards are tacked onto walls to decorate any remaining empty space. Just above the counter a signs reads “If you aren’t willing to spend the money, you’ll never own a good hat!”
Nestled amongst the abandoned buildings of downtown Buffalo rests one of the few remaining producers of hand-made hats in the United States. The Custom Hatter, located on the corner of Broadway and Schmarbeck, is the brainchild of Buffalo native and master hatter Gary White. He offers his talents to create custom fit hats to those who are willing to compromise price for quality. White’s shop is full of relics, including replicas of 1960s porkpie hats and autographed photos of various celebrities like Woody Allen and James Earl Jones.
White has been making hats by hand for twenty years. He first took an interest while working at Western New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue equivalent, the currently out of business Pellure and Mure. White recalls, “We would have people that would come in who were the owners of companies; Buffalo’s blue blood.”
White attributes his success to his family, “My father was a truck driver with no education and my mother was a stay at home mom. They worked very hard to make the best they could for my brother and I.” He began his education at Erie community College where he majored in criminal justice and business while working part time. He eventually moved up the ladder at Pellure and Mure and attained the position of store buyer. Because his job required him to seek out new products in high-quality stores, he was exposed to the world of professional hat making. After graduating, he revealed his plan to his family. who supported him every step of the way.
Since then, White has gathered original hat making equipment from all over the U.S. “What I do now is the way they [made hats] in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, completely identical,” he said. Although he used to book flights in order to find these machines, he claims that “it’s no different than having a hobby. But I wanted to do something to leave a legacy someday.” In order accomplish his goal, he flew out to Lynn, Massachusetts where he interviewed and later apprenticed with master hatter Henry Goldstein.
It was with Goldstein that White was educated and had first hand experience in the process of hat making. Fine quality hats were originally made of beaver pelts grinded and compressed to form felt. The interior was composed of either breathable silk or leather, which had undergone a careful tanning process.
To make a custom hat, the measurement of a person’s head must first be taken, then divided by pi. “We use the formula for pi to get as close in size of a hat as possible. It’s very important that when you measure, you do it to the shape of the persons head. Some may be wide ovals or long ovals; somebody’s head may be shaped long. That’s why I get pictures of their side profile, to see the shape of their head so the hat fits them perfectly.”
After the measurement is taken, White then selects a corresponding wooden block to form the top of the hat. His collection of antique wooden blocks is so extensive, that he says “if each could talk, they would tell stories dating back to the 1800s.” The corresponding block is then placed on top of the felt, which is pressed into the machine causing the felt to stretch out in that particular shape. To get the indentation in the top, the felt is heavily steamed and hand ironed. If a person has an oddly shaped head, “you have to hand stretch anything that’s extra,” White said. “It’s a lot of work.”
But the process of making hats has changed significantly since Frank Sinatra wore his favorite Cavanaugh hat. White explains, “Hydraulically pressed aluminum molds are now used to automate the process of hat making.” In addition, hats are made of alternative woven felt, a less durable fabric, and in mass-produced sizes. “If you wanted to learn the craft, being an apprentice is the only way to do it,” White said.
In one corner of his store, White dedicates a small shrine to the legendary Panama hat, whose traditional method of construction is slowly fading. The original Panama hat was made in a small village in Ecuador called Montecristi. Weavers would split and piece together straw so finely that the finished product would mimic the appearance of silk. White says, “Authentic Panama hats can take anywhere from six months and up to weave, sometimes two years depending on how tight the weave is. Because of that, they can cost thousands of dollars.”
Donna Massimo has been the University at Buffalo’s costume shop manager for twenty-five years and has known White for fifteen. As a witness to fashions that come and go she explains that her nostalgia for hats lies in her desire “to see people more interested in quality and fashion rather than disposability. Besides, men look great in hats!” White explains, “the hat industry took a dip in ‘60s because hair styles of the generation were longer, mainly because of influence of the Beatles. They had a different mindset, and John Kennedy didn’t even wear a hat during his inauguration.”
White says his past clientele still come back to him because “when you start in business, you have to build a base of clientele. I built mine on trade.” In addition, Hollywood has called on White to make Riverboat Gambler hats for Wild Wild West, as well as contribute to the third installment of the Indiana Jones movie series. He recently worked with Leonardo DiCaprio on his upcoming movie Revolutionary Road to produce “period-accurate 1950s snap brim fedoras.”
Even after making hats for theater productions such as Thoroughly Modern Millie and Wonderful Town, and working on hats for movie costumes, White is still down to earth. “You know, money isn’t everything. I would like to think that I’m very humble. My million dollars in the bank would be that my family is very healthy and happy. Everyone else has a million dollars in their life, it just depends how they look at it.”
