Phil G.
Yelp
I wear hats, always have, since my youth in New York City. Getting dressed up, going to the "city," to a play, dinner, jazz club in the Village etc; I put on a Pierre Cardin suit, Chavret shirt with french cuffs, Oleg Cassini silk tie, Bostonian wing tips, and a fedora from Worth and Worth, and knew I was ready for a sophisticated night on the town. I was seventeen years old. Times changed, Kennedy went hatless at his inauguration, he was sadly assassinated, the Vietnam War broke out, demonstrations, the Beatles, drugs and jeans, all brought about a new casual tude towards everything. Hats became passé. Eventually, baseball caps became de rigour, but they're ugly and have no style. Baseball caps fit the need for homogeny demanded by the Technology Generation.
I still wore hats, fedoras and panamas. Yet, decent hat stores have shuttered their doors across this nation. It was impossible to find a good hat store in Milwaukee, Louisville, and Salt Lake City. I depended on taking chances with an internet purchase, certainly a risky proposition.
Then chance brought me to Optimo hats. I had no idea. On a cold, blustery windy April Chicago day, sleet pelting me from all angles, my hands shaking from the freeze, I used Google maps and put in "hats," while standing outside Bloomingdales on Michigan Avenue. Up popped Optimo Hats, almost a 2 mile walk south in the Loop. I wasn't in the mood for The Museum of Contemporary Art, and liked the challenge of an urban walk in the beastly conditions. Thus, head bent against the wind and frozen pellets, I began my "frozen tundra" walk to Chicago's political apex, passing the Water Tower, over the river, the Goodman Theater, the infamous Picasso sculpture, the lost Chagall mosaic, until I found Optimo.
Expecting an old school, inner city, hat shop, I was surprised and almost bewildered to find a bespoke, elegant men's hat emporium. What was it doing within sound and sight of the elevated train? Who cared, I was in hat heaven. Optimo makes its own hats in their factory a few miles away from their shop.
Alexander, a young man reminiscent of the tailors fitting you for a custom suit on Savile Row in London, helped me try on a few Panama summer hats. Nothing made me want to spend the minimum $500 on the cheapest, even if the hats are so well made. Then, Alexander walked into the back room and brought out the "hat." It was it. The hat I imagined myself wearing on a cruise down the Nile, boarding a Vaporetto in Venice, listening to Chick Corea in Aspen, drinking a chilled glass of white wine in Palermo Soho down Argentina way, and even strolling Main Street in Salt Lake City, pissing off 90% of the people who place demands on humanity to fit in, never stepping outside the lines prescribed by the hierarchy. The hat was me and will be mine. Money well spent on something that can stretch the imagination, taking me to places I rather be. Optimo Hats transported my soul. Thank you.
