Hatters bring Southern charm to Seattle

Gone is the era of pervasive high teas, the politely spoken “milady,” shined shoes and hat wearing. But those were the days in which local hat makers Henrietta Swan Price and Alexander Conley III grew up. 

Both moved to Seattle from the South and maintain their presence in the community with their Southern charm and their hat shops.

“I noticed that in my lifetime,” Price said, “when all the men came home [from war], the ladies would be waiting at the docks and airports [wearing] their gloves and hats. And their men were so glad to see them looking elegant and classy!” 

Price said that women are queens and deserve to dress elegantly. To her, this especially means topping off a look with a hat. Price remembers watching the older women disappear into a room for high tea in Houston, where she grew up.

“At the church I grew up in, the mature ladies made hats to match their garments, and they did that as a sisterhood. We couldn’t sit around adults like children do today,” she said. 

It was this exclusivity and the ladies’ looks that intrigued the 12-year-old Price about the art of hat making.

A ‘playhouse’

Price moved to Seattle in 1962 and while nursing was her career, her passion has always been hats. 

With her family’s support, she opened Henrietta’s Hats at 2702 E. Madison St. (206-322-8169), and she’s been there for 27 years.

The hats at Henrietta’s reflect designs from the 1920s through the 1950s. The styles include fedoras and derby hats, which are popular this time of year as people prepare for horse derbies.

As with the Kentucky Derby, Price typically sees a boost in sales around Easter and Mother’s Day. She also saw an increase around the time of the royal wedding of Prince William and Duchess Kate in April 2011.

Even if there are no royal-wedding parties or derbies to attend, Price said hats can and should be worn at any time. “If you can wear a fur coat and jeans and heels,” she said, “you can definitely wear a fedora.”

Price invites customers to stand in front of her store mirror, as she places one hat at a time on their heads. 

“I have a playhouse. I want them to get the best experience out of a hat. Because if they do that, then I know I have a customer that might tell somebody else [about her hats],” she said.

Sarah Isakson owns the consignment shop Sugarlump next door to Henrietta’s Hats. “Henrietta has people coming in just for support, who aren’t necessarily buying hats. They just come in to talk,” Isakson said.

Price is not only beloved for her shop, but for her involvement in the community. “She volunteers with senior citizens, at soup kitchens and at the local school. Her doors are always open,” Isakson said.

An individual fit

Less than a five-minute drive from Henrietta’s Hats is Conley Hat Manufacturing, formerly in a Madrona storefront and now at 913 27th Ave. (206-322-1868). Conley named his store after his mother.

“I’ve always been about making people happy. Being raised by a religious woman, her thing was helping everybody she could. So I grew up with that kind of philosophy myself. I like to make people happy,” the Tennessee native said of his ability to create and repair hats for customers.

“Everybody’s head shape is different — that’s what makes custom hats so invaluable. See, [large manufacturers] just put round shapes in hats, and they don’t necessarily make it to fit your head,” Conley explained.

To find someone’s perfect head shape, Conley uses an instrument called a conformator. This 19th-century hat-fitting gadget, he said, is 190 years old; Conley said he would be surprised if 20 existed in the United States today.

Conley molds, or conforms, the helmet-like device around the skull so that no gaps exist. At the top of the instrument are small pins. 

Conley folds a flap on top of the machine — where he sticks a note card — over the pins so that the points perforate the card. This gives him a scale-model template for the individual’s head shape.

“Some people are worried about their nose being crooked, and this device can show you,” Conley said. 

Whether he would share that information with a customer, Conley joked, “If you do have a funny shape to your head, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Another early start

Conley’s 67-year hat career began in the 1940s when he was 10 years old. 

“All the kids would make shoe-shine boxes when we got old enough. I ended up working in the shoe-shine parlor, and in the shoe shine parlor was a hatter. I’ll never forget Mr. Elton,” he said.

Elton had a shop on the main street “so he had a chance to see all the ladies going by. He said to me, ‘Buddy, I bet you could use a little Christmas money. Why don’t you go over and tell her I want to talk to her?’” Conley recalled. 

“So I did that for him a few times, and I guess he thought I was worth my salt! He started teaching me to be a hatter so he could keep me around,” he continued.

“There were more hats back in the day, and people just slowly got away from wearing hats,” Conley said, agreeing with Price. “But I think it’s building again now, you know? 

“When I dress and go somewhere, people comment. And people will compliment you,” he continued. “It’s time to start a movement!”