It wasn’t really the prospect of a new hat that pulled me into Goorin Bros. Hat Shop. Instead, I was drawn to the old-world look of the store. Relatively new to the Queen Street West strip (they just opened on May 18th), the store literally looks like it was lifted out of its year of conception (1895) and placed here. The historic vibe continues into the store and has never left their hat-making process.
Beloved by musical artists like Carlos Santana and Stevie Wonder, the Goorin label was started by craftsman Cassel Goorin who hand-made hats out of a cart in Pittsburg at the turn of the century. In 1949, the business was moved to San Francisco by his two sons where they opened their first real store specializing in custom orders. It wasn’t until 2006 that a full-fledged Goorin Bros. retail store opened in North Beach. Now with 25 retail locations across North America, the company is run by Cassel’s great-grandson Ben, a fourth generation hat merchant.
Only the second location in all of Canada (big sister store is in Vancouver), our own Goorin hat shop is quaintly packed with floor-to-ceiling shelves that boast a multitude of hats in every imaginable style. Messenger caps, boaters, porkpies, fedoras, baseball caps, panamas, cloches…whatever you want, it’s here and accounted for. I had a chance to sit down with shop keeper Jen and talk about (what else?) hats.
“All of our American-made hats are still hand crafted,” she says. “There’s a guy named Ruby in New Jersey who operates one of the last cut-and-sew factories in the US. Some of our products are even still formed on the same hat blocks the original Goorins used.”
In addition to being over a century old, the Goorin label is known for its wide variety of inventory and a legions of die-hard fans. For the past few years, Goorin’s website has blown up with custom orders that led to the need for actual stores. Stores that not only cater to life-long buyers, but also people who never thought to enter a hat shop.
“My favourite customers are the ones who come in and say they’re not hat people,” Jen tells me with a laugh. “Those are always the people who leave with two new hats.”
This illustrious history of the label may be what drives people to their stores, but quality and workmanship of the product is what has them making purchases. No matter the location, every Goorin sales associate is schooled on the background of the family and the painstaking process of hat-crafting workers go through to deliver top quality goods. Most hats is hand stitched (some with funny labels like “Drink More” in them) and hand molded on the aforementioned hat blocks from the early 1900s.
“When you step into our store, it’s almost like you’ve stepped back in time,” Jen says. “You’ve got these crazy people who just want to get to know you and dance around with you before even thinking of shoving a product in your face.”
Ask around a few vintage shops and you’ll hear that they love finding classic Goorin styles from years past. With fashion styles ebbing and flowing between old and new, Jen tells me that their classic styles (the same ones the label produced from the 20s-60s) still get a lot of attention. Soon, The Great Gatsby film will hit theatres and Jen hopes that the 1920s-style hats they supply will most likely bring in customers looking to achieve Carey Mulligan’s chic flapper flair.
“All we want to do is match you up with a hat that you’ll love forever,” Jen says. “You’ll have it forever knowing that the quality and craft will never go out of style. You’re not only buying a hat, but you’re buying a piece of our history too.”
Goorin Bros. Hat Shop is located at 320 Queen Street West.
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Bianca Teixeira writes about style for Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at @BeeLauraTee.
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