The Storied Hat Begins…

It is traditional for small businesses to recap the Old Year before the New Year starts. But since I am transitioning to a new product line in 2023-24, instead of recapping my (mostly) final hats from 2022, I’m going to take you back to the very beginning in about 1985, when I was still a self taught hobby hatmaker.

I was person of little renown in a medieval group called the SCA, where I portrayed a storyteller whose name was Lao Xue-sheng. Ever the spendthrift, I saved wool felt that had covered old window display panels at my job, and shopped thrift stores for fur coats to cut up, and taught myself how to make early period hats. I gave the first few away to see how they would be accepted. Hatmaking also gave me something to do : )

‘Lao’s Hats’ became the name people used when describing my hats to their friends…

Lao Hats became my brand, and later, the name of my company when enough people convinced me that I could turn my hobby into a commercial venture.

My first business card was printed on construction paper and hand stamped with my chop, which also served as the first “maker’s tags” inside my hats, when I actually started tagging my hats. My first catalog was 4 pages, hand drawn…

A friend known in the SCA as Kerij-e, made a website for me in 2002, which landed me invitations to show my hats in galleries the following year.

And thus the tale of “The Storied Hat” begins…