Studio Tour: Inside a New York City Hatmaker’s Workshop
The tricks of one hatter’s trade are tucked in the nooks and crannies all over his eclectic Manhattan workspace.
Photographs by Molly Mattalon
The art of hat-making “has gotten very popular,” says Brandon Franklin, “but unfortunately, you can’t just become a hatmaker by watching YouTube videos.” It’s true that the multibillion-dollar industry has been on an upward swing in recent years, but old-school specialists like Franklin, who runs bespoke shop B.M. Franklin & Co, are still a niche subset. The New Yorker got his start in luxury fashion working in sales at Ralph Lauren, but he shifted gears after meeting the owner of nearly century-old midtown hat shop Worth & Worth. “I saw what needed to be done to bring the business into the 21st century marketing- and sales-wise,” he says. He left Ralph Lauren and joined Worth & Worth in 2010. “I was there six days a week, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., talking to clients, selling pieces, going in the back of the shop to make things,” he says. “It gave me an opportunity to dive into the history of the craft.” After apprenticing for six years, Franklin opened his own shop in lower Manhattan. “I love making pieces that are reflective of my wearers’ personality, their individuality, and how they express themselves,” he says.
With two assistants, he now produces about 13 pieces a week for customers from as close as Brooklyn and as far as South Korea. Some find him online, others via Instagram, and still others, increasingly, through word-of-mouth about his Airbnb Experience, which he launched in 2017. “It’s opened me up to the rest of the world,” Franklin says.
After a decade in the business, his passion has only deepened. “We would get a decent amount of inventory from a factory in Italy,” he says of his apprenticeship days. “How they produced the product and the standards they maintained — being surrounded by all that history drove me to fall in love. I think some little old Italian guy jumped into my body, possessed me, and has been running my life for the past several years.” Here, his guide to the odds and ends in his downtown atelier.
The Inventory
Though visitors will spot plenty of samples and ready-to-wear hats, many are often out on shoots (Sarah Jessica Parker and Michael Strahan are some of the studio’s star clients). As for commonalities across Franklin’s designs, “it’s all about movement, light, and angle,” he says. “Very rarely will you see a rigid piece. Some angle will help shed light on how beautiful you are.”
Notable Notions
“I get inspired by anything and everything — by pieces I’ve made in the past, by the theme of a movie, or by small things like the angle of a building or the way that light hits the sidewalk,” says Franklin. His notebook, however, is more brainstorm bank than drawing pad. “If I sketch anything out, it’ll be some kind of embroidery, or how we’re going to layer [embellishments]. The things I jot down are more operational: event ideas, trunk show ideas, ideas about how to take over the world. Things of that nature.”
Shape Shifters
O-shaped brim blocks, or flanges, establish the hat’s circumference and help define the crown-brim line. In bygone hat heydays, the most popular sizes were 7 to 7, but as humans generally got bigger, brim increments have crept up, making it harder to find vintage blocks in contemporary sizes. Prices have responded in kind: “When I started buying them, they cost $10 to $30,” Franklin says. “Now they’re $100 to $300.”
Trinkets and Trim
Franklin’s box of accessories is “where all the fun happens.” Clients who want to embellish their hat can look through his accumulation of trim and knickknacks to find something that resonates: a fleur-de-lis from New Orleans; a hatpin from Amsterdam; a miniature spinning Tibetan calendar purchased in Berkeley; even a tiny bottle of hot sauce. Franklin constantly finds items as he works and travels and keeps them on hand just in case. Watching customers get excited to dig through the box and add a personal touch “feeds my soul,” he says.
Maker intel: A tailor’s iron and steamer are crucial for structuring and shaping Franklin’s hats. Vintage millinery steamers were “like massive cauldrons” that hooked up to the building’s water supply, he says, but the Jiffy steamer, which dates back to 1940, is a much more compact option.
About the author: Judith Ohikuare is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Prior to freelancing, Judith worked on staff at Refinery29, Cosmopolitan, and Inc., covering entrepreneurship, technology, and personal finance. She is also the Development Manager at NY Writers Coalition (NYWC), a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that produces free creative writing workshops across the city, with a particular emphasis on historically underserved and marginalized communities. NYWC’s workshops take place in locations that include libraries, schools, hospitals, senior and LGBTQ centers, and Rikers Island.
