PLAIN AND SIMPLE hats - ON TREND

On a recent design trip to China, we stopped off in Tokyo to do some trend shopping. Tokyo has been the hat capital of fashion for a number of years. Not only do Edokkos love to wear hats, they love to wear statement hats. Hats that yell, "look at me!". Hats with crazy shapes and crazier trims. Hats with amazing attention to details. Hats that put the K in kool!
Besides the CA4LA ( translates to head size) hat chain and the bespoke THE FAT HATTER, who is in reality a hefty fellow, you could find healthy hat departments in every major store.
For hat making videos from the stores check out eye_of_the_designer on instragram.

BESPOKE HAT COSTS

So we trolled the stores for 2 days, 9 hours per day and simply fond nothing that got our creative juices flowing. In Japan there has been a seismic shift away from hat wearing since our last visit there 2 years ago. 2" fedoras and under are non existent, with the exception of a few spotted on older solitary men.

This winter the hat of choice is a gender-neutral round or pinched crown, broad stiff brim, trimless or a very simple trim. This is a little concerning, as a hat without bells and whistles, can be a tad boring. Not that all hats have to be fancy, but it is nice to have a little trim for the Dapper Dans and ladies with hatitude to wear.

What was interesting and very important regarding these plain and simple hats was BRANDING!!
Although many of these hats looked like they should be cheap, and would be in H&M, Uniglo etc.,  they were far from it. As hatters, we were aghast to see medium quality wool felt hats at US$250 while nice quality fur felt was at US$150. Obviously the Japanese customer knows little regarding quality or does not care, but is willing to pay over inflated prices for the right BRAND.

Luckily at DORFMAN PACIFIC, we have solid brands to offer our customer Scala, Woolrich, Biltmore.

PLAIN AND SIMPLE HATS

PLAIN AND SIMPLE

HANG YOUR HAT UP

I really like the hat ring trim on this hat!

There was also a scarcity of cloth caps in Tokyo stores, but the Japanese are certainly in love with HARRIS TWEED. Forget about a discreet inside labels, they could not make the labels big enough.

HARRIS TWEED AS A BRAND

And as we have been seeing in the USA, flat peaked baseball caps continue to gain strength but are totally brand driven.

As we all know, the devil is in the details!