The Hat Makes The Woman

Two summer hat styles by Pandemonium Hats

It is a series of happy coincidences that has brought Leigh Young to her current place in life as a successful entrepreneur of handmade hats, made under her Pandemonium Hats label.  Currently based out of her home studio in Burien, Washington, she has experienced the strange phenomenon of having her business explode during these recession years.  So, how did it all happen?  Let's find out!

"Grace" hat

I asked Leigh when she started sewing.  She said, "I don't completely remember.  However, my mom once showed me a rather hideous-looking doll which she said I made when I was 7.  I made a few things back then, but was mostly messing around.  I'd lay down on a piece of fabric and cut it out around me.  Then drape it together and sew it up.  None of it was any good."

Unable to get a class she wanted in high school, she ended up in a sewing class.  Happily, she liked it enough that after graduation, Leigh went on to design school at Seattle Central Community College.  Their program is quite excellent.  "I really developed excellent technical skills there."  After graduating in the early 90s, she developed a line of 1920s-inspired clothing with an edgy feel, and thus was born the Pandemonium label.  She sold these at retail shows and fund-raisers, but it was tough going at the beginning, so Leigh held down three other jobs to make ends meet, including loading trucks for UPS.

Acrylic "patterns" for various
hat styles

One day, she got a call from the owner of We Hats, an independent hat maker in Seattle, who was looking for help making hats, and started working there.  And thus, another happy coincidence occurred.  When that owner retired, Leigh took over the label and continued making and selling the line.  At this time she was still working on her clothing line on the side, but getting buried by the costs.  She noticed how much fewer capital costs were involved in making hats, and gradually switched her focus to this.  By 1998, it was all hats.

Bolts of fabric waiting to become
hats, scarves and handbags

Happy coincidence #3 happened here, when she did the large wholesale clothing trade show in Las Vegas.  While the show itself didn't go so well, she got her first sales rep - which led to other reps, and ultimately sales to boutiques all across the US and Canada.  And then, just a few years into it, came 9/11.  Like so many other small businesses, her sales plummeted.  But she just hung in there and kept at it.  Business grew ever so slowly, but followed an upward trajectory.  As things grew, she gradually added scarves and handbags to the line.

Leigh Young herself
in a new product for 2012,
the fur collar!

So now here we are in 2012, and still feeling the effects of an economic recession.  Yet for Leigh Young, the past two years have seen explosive growth in her business.  Why?  The luxurious faux fur fabrics she added to her line back in 2000 suddenly took off.  "The demand for these faux fur products is just crazy", she says.  The orders have come rolling in so fast!  With more orders coming in than she could possibly make by herself, she had to suddenly become an employer.  Finding workers with the necessary technical skills to get the quality results for which she was known proved frustrating.  For the 2011 winter season, she had thirteen sewers working hard at the peak.

Two women hard at work in May, sewing the
faux fur products in preparation for
the many orders soon to come in for winter.

In preparation for this third winter with many and large orders for the faux fur, Leigh is preparing well in advance.  Rather than waiting for an order to come in, and then begin making it, she is looking at order history to determine top sellers.  Many of her sewers are hard at work creating a nice back stock supply!

Faux Fur finished back-stock

Leigh's spring/summer hats are also quite wonderful.  With lovely fabrics and easy-to-wear styles, she describes her customer as a woman between 18 - 50 who has a little more confidence and style than the masses.  She's not afraid to stand out a bit.

Leigh is looking forward to continued business growth, but wants to stay with small stores and boutiques.  No big box stores for her; she prefers working with small independent business-owners like herself.  She loves the freedom of working for herself, despite the many hard knocks along the way!  I think we'll be able to enjoy many more years of casual yet fun hats from Pandemonium.

Enjoy this video of Leigh herself, showing the variety of ways to wear another new product this winter - a 3-button scarf!  And then, look forward to getting one for yourself this coming winter!  Click on the link below...

Demonstration: the 3-button scarf

Join us Thursday, May 17, 2012 for a trunk show featuring Leigh Young's Pandemonium Hats for spring and summer!  We hope to see you that evening from 5 - 8 pm.

Cheers,

Manya Vee

www.ManyaVeeSelects.com

Manya's Fear of Hats

Manya in her aunt's Schiaparelli hat

I fell in love with hats at a young age. I had a great aunt who hailed from England, and she was one of those stylish women who never left the house in anything other than a dress with hose, matching shoes and handbag, and a hat. She had an awesome collection of hats from the 40s and 50s, and I managed to acquire many of them upon her death. These are truly wonderful hats, with little veils, and feathers with rhinestones on them, and stuff like that. Some were made of velvet. And there's even a quite amazing one from very famous hatmaker Elsa Schiaparelli, albeit one not as adventurous as ones that made her famous.

Manya's purple summer hat

Nevertheless, it took me many years to become comfortable wearing fun, contemporary hats. I think I associated them with an earlier age, and it felt sort of like putting on a costume to wear something other than a baseball cap (in summer to keep the sun from hurting my eyes) or a fleece hat (in winter to keep my head warm). But I never quite lost my admiration of a nice hat. About 8 years ago, I decided that a very pretty summer straw hat needed to replace my baseball cap. This was made by a local artist whose name I've now forgotten.

Pair of hats by Pandemonium

I confess that I really had to work up some courage to actually wear it as an all-day affair, as part of my outfit. I felt like I had a really big sign over my head saying “NOTICE ME!” Now, you all know that I enjoy wearing beautiful, yet comfortable clothing, so you may find it hard to believe that this was such a stretch for me. But it really was! When I finally did it, that's when the magic began. I got so many honest, heart-felt compliments all day long, that I began to get an insight into contemporary American culture. And the compliments came from both women and men equally, too. There was something in their voices that I can only describe as longing. Was it longing for a simpler age when everyone, both men and women, didn't leave the house without a hat? Or maybe it was a longing for just a touch of elegance to bring a ray of sunshine into their day. It could be a little of both.

Parkhurst's "Column Peak" hat
in moccachino

The thing is, I really enjoyed bringing some joy into the lives of perfect strangers. We all walk about in isolation so much of the time. No one notices anyone else, and if they do, it seems so much more likely that it's for a bad reason than a good one. What a magical thing it is, then, to have smiling strangers look you dead in the eye and tell you how lovely your hat is! You could be the only reason that person smiled the entire day long. Think about that!

Now I try to make hats a much bigger part of my everyday wardrobe. True, I don't wear a hat every single day. But I try to wear one at least once a week. This goal was a main motivator for me to find hat artists who made hats that were simple, yet interesting, and of a type you could really wear all day long. Also, not with a ridiculous price tag. It was a bit of a risk because I wasn't sure if they would really sell or not. After all, I don't see that many people walking around with fun hats on in Edmonds. Lots of bare heads out there.

Parkhurst's "Roz Topper" in Sandstone

To my joy and amazement, I found that the hats I chose were, indeed, exactly what many of you were looking for! My first foray into hats was the wonderful cotton knits from Parkhurst, a Toronto company. These all sell for between $25 and $40, and are quite simple, but with just a splash of style. Perfect for wearing all day long! And they can smash flat in the bottom of your suitcase to become perfect travel partners.

After that, I encountered Seattle designer Leigh Young and her Pandemonium Hats. These are a step up in both quality of materials, as well as style. But they are not so over-the-top as to feel like a costume. A person wearing these is destined to get even more compliments all day long.

"Katherine" hat by Pandemonium

Leigh will be here for a trunk show on Thursday, May 19, from 5 – 8 pm during our monthly Third Thursday Art Walk. It's an excellent opportunity to choose from a very wide selection of hats, and even order a special one. Her hats are all under $75, so it won't break your budget either. But if you can't make it that evening, you'll find a lovely selection at the gallery afterwards – just not nearly as many as will be available during Art Walk.

I hope you'll join us that evening – even if just to try on some hats and get a feel for what it might be like to wear one all day! Just think how amazing it will be to share a moment of beauty with complete strangers. I have to tell you, it is a very humbling and happy experience. I hope you'll try it!

Three hats by Leigh Young's Pandemonium Millinery