Optimo Hat Shop

Wooden rings stacked on shelves bear cryptic numbers. Head shaped domes carved from poplar, some as much as 80 years old, gather no dust. Rows and racks of the finest hats, beaver, wool and hand-woven straw line the wall behind the counter. The furniture and accoutrements transport the casual visitor back in time, fully into fin de siècle, late Victorian splendor.

Optimo Hat Shop is one of Bisbee’s oldest businesses. The shop has remained the same for 55 years while the world around it accelerated into breakneck-speed technological and cultural change. A legend born in the 1960s held that John F. Kennedy “killed” hats as a staple of men’s fashion, but the truth is demand for old fashioned hats has declined steadily over the last century. Declining demand has in turn made the old fashioned milliner’s craft an endangered species.  That decline is partly due to a falling off of wood carving and milling; the American craftsmanship that used to manufacture milliner’s tools has largely disappeared—flanges, the arcane wooden rings on the back shelves are among the last of their kind. I’m told there are efforts to replicate these implements using 3D printers, but these are…well, its just more plastic going into the world and these imitations don’t withstand the heat, necessary moisture absorption and overall stress of proper hat crafting.

Fortunately the tools, the trade and the pride-in-work that puts the art in artisan can still be found, right here in Bisbee Arizona, the Town Too Big for its Britches.

Grant Sergot is the man who put Bisbee on the map as a—no exaggeration here—world renowned destination for fine quality custom hats. Grant embraced all types of hats for his craft, and learned his trade at the feet of experts in crafting various types of hats, from wool to beaver, to cowboys to derbies, from berets to porkpies to fedoras. But the real draw that made Grant so sought after and made Optimo’s name was his skill at crafting custom made Panama straw hats made from Ecuadorian Paja Toquilla straw. Unlike wool or leather hats, Panamas breathe–a crucial quality for the Arizona desert dweller. And unlike more common, brittle types of straw that can irreparably fray around the edges over time, the supple Paja Toquilla fiber holds its shape beautifully. These Panama hats, custom made for the owner, are “heirloom sculptures,” works of art suitable to be passed down through generations.

A truly custom hat fitted to the cranium of the customer requires the artisan to employ a curious, anachronistic tool from the Industrial Age: the conformer (or in French, conformateur). This contraption looks like a Victorian torture device, but renders via holes punched in paper an impression of the customer’s head shape. Submitting to the conformateur treatment is a humbling experience as the customer will soon come face to face with the uncomfortable fact that nobody has a perfectly symmetrical head.

I speak from experience here. I’ve always been a hat wearing man, and the privilege of living in a town with a world-renowned hat shop made me naturally covetous of a real, custom made Optimo hat. I considered my 2020 acquisition of a custom made, “HCA” type Panama a milestone in becoming a true Bisbonian.

But submitting to the conformateur treatment made me recoil at the sight of my irregular, Mr. Potato Head print. I was neither the first nor the last to have such a visceral reaction to the sight of a misshapen, asymmetrical brainpan.

After decades of service as one of Bisbee’s renowned artisans, Grant Sergot developed serious health problems rendering him unable to continue. Fortunately local fiber artist Karen Schumacher, and ceramic artist Risha Druckman were available to learn the craft from a self-made master of the craft. In the years that followed Karen and Risha have kept the business, and the world-class artisanship behind it, going strong, with ample guidance and mentorship from Mr. Sergot. These worthy successors crafted my HCA hat.

And they’ve made hats for some seriously elite clientele. We will not mention names for the sake of discretion and decorum in a world given over to celebrity and elite idolatry. Suffice to say, being one of a very few surviving providers of proper hats made in the old fashioned way, Optimo has to this day its share of elite clientele who know what they want and know how to get it.

And with them, the discerning Bisbee local looking to step out in style.

Keith Allen Dennis is a Bisbee writer and songster. You can find his music at http://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com.