My Custom Hat
After two days exploring Santa Fe, we headed north on the high road to Taos. It was a spectacular drive as the landscape ascends from the high desert vegetation of juniper and pinon to a pine forest and finally to a chamisa covered plane overlooking the Rio Grande Gorge. Chimayo, Truchas, Trampas, Penasco— we drove through one small, intriguing village after another, promising ourselves that we would return and visit another day.
After plates of blue corn enchiladas, we wandered the galleries and shops of downtown Taos. Just looking, not intending to buy. Shopkeepers did what shopkeepers do, they chatted us up. "Where are you from?" "First trip?" "Please look around and let me know if you need any help." We slid in and out of tempting stores, our credit cards secure in our wallets until we found the hat shop.
He said his name was Leslie as he smiled and gestured to his collection of cowboy hats. "Visiting from out of town?" "New York City," we replied, which was no doubt our first mistake.
"See anything you like; I'll help you get the right fit." Of course, I had to see what I would look like in one of the hats, prompting Leslie to bring out the conformateur. Invented in Paris in the 1840's by Allie Maillard, it's a bizarre looking contraption that is the most reliable way to translate the fit of a custom hat to the exact shape of your head. It also makes for great shopping theater and our hat man knew how to play me.
He set it on my head the way I would wear a hat and the conformateur lined up a series of pins that created a punch card with a top-down outline of my head. With my correct size and shape recorded, Leslie proceeded to bring out a gorgeous gray felt hat—8-ply beaver, soft and rich in color. "It has your name on it," he grinned. I had to agree when I donned my custom fit hat. It looked great, cowgirl chic, I thought. Jeff said it would be my birthday present; I was delighted as it cost nearly $300, and I coveted it.
After Leslie convinced Jeff that another beaver hat, a dove gray model, was perfect for him, all it took was a quick swipe of an American Express card and we were outfitted. Maybe not for our New York lives, but we liked our new Western look.
Back home admiring myself in my hat, I took it off to study it more closely. Like me it was originally from Montana, the embossing on the hatband read Rand's Custom Hatters in Billings. The other side of the hatband read Custom Made For Kristy Tucker Horsefeathers. My very special, just-for-me, custom hat was made for some other woman, who hadn't wanted it. Had she tried it on and decided it didn't suit her? Or had she never picked it up? In any case it was inventory that Leslie needed to move, and I had appeared, a tourist from the big city, an easy sell if you knew what to do.
I wore my hat a few times in NYC, but it felt like a costume. Here in New Mexico, where locals and tourists alike do wear their hats, it feels less like a prop. I have worn it to the rodeo, which is a sea of hats in and out of the arena. I have worn it for the Faralito Walk on Canyon Road on more than one frosty Christmas Eve. And I have used it as a real prop for a photo shoot.
Most of time it hangs on a hat rack in my office, a piece of art in its own way. It's wonderful souvenir of my first trip to New Mexico when my boyfriend bought me an extravagant gift from sly, memorable shopkeeper with a convincing smile.
While I may not be as attached to my hat as Lyle Lovett is to his, I do love his song “Don’t Touch My Hat”.