Occasional Jazz Conjectures

[on John Helmer, Haberdasher and the near-death of the hat] 

During the 18th century, it was a capital crime in England to forge the stamp of a licensed hatter. Rich or poor, we once all wore hats, caps, lids, toppers, or chapeaux of some sort. Gone are the hat-check girls, tipping the hat (or passing the hat for tips), snapping the brim down with hawkish Walter Winchell conviction, and after Hatless Jack Kennedy, gone is the ability to exclaim, “I’ll eat my hat.” The power of the noirish Man in the Hat was so strong that after JFK hung up his, we had to look long across the Atlantic and find it in the mid-century romance between the French and classic grain-rich iconic, cinematic archetypes. Vive la Republique: You have to love the way the French embrace and nurture America’s forgotten art-forms, Hollywood, and puzzling cultural products (think of their adulations of jazz geniuses like Bud Powell and Sidney Bechet, Alain Delon and Eddie Constantine in film noir hats, or the perverse appetite for Jerry Lewis)… but that’s another missive altogether. We’re talking about a hat here.

Hats are serious business. Ask poet Billy Collins. He wrote a lovely, quiet, manifesto-like lament, entitled The Death of the Hat:

Once every man wore a hat
in the ashen newsreels,
the avenues of cities
are broad rivers flowing with hats…
Hats were the law.
They went without saying.
You noticed a man without a hat in a crowd.
You bought them from Adams or Dobbs
who branded your initials in gold
on the inside band…
The day war was declared
everyone in the street was wearing a hat.
And they were wearing hats
when a ship loaded with men sank in the icy sea…

Jazz and American Popular Song have their “standards”—torch-bearing, trustworthy chestnuts of melody and wisdom…beacons that remind of us what is right in the world. Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are one kind of arbiter of elegance; but in this world of over-rated treasures, underrated pleasures, John Helmer, Haberdasher, is another.

Founded in 1921 (along Portland’s own Great White Way on SW Broadway), this singular men’s hat and clothing store is now run by the family’s third generation and continues to this day to buoy, with graceful insistence, the standards and expectations of manhood. Surviving Hatless Jack, the wooly ’60s, the incursion of denim leisure suits, and dreaded casual Fridays is no easy feat, but unswervingly they maintain their, “contrarian business with a professional, pleasant, fair, fun and flexible flair.” Helmer is an exemplar of the houndstoothian, classically sartorial weltanschauung—and while they may not be as fashion-forward, or modernly continental as their neighbor, Mario’s, they occupy a solid rung on the ladder of dignified standards and service that is untouchable. And they know a hat is serious business too.

Here’s how I know. Last week I received the following message:
“Hello Tim, this is John Helmer of the hat store in downtown Portland. You were in last December, about a year ago, asking about a particular hat made by Biltmore, ‘The Park Avenue,’ in a dark charcoal. We did not get that one in, but we do have one that is similar—it’s made by Stetson and it’s called ‘The Hampton,’ in a dark gray, and it has the same crown shape to it. It is not quite as dark (the other difference is a binding on the edge, as opposed to the raw edge), otherwise it’s very similar. It is a little more expensive, but it’s a nicer quality felt, but I did want to let you know about that option. I also noticed that we do have the Park Avenue in a lighter gray in the 7-1/4, but I imagine you probably saw that. Give us a call if either of these options appeals to you—and I hope to see you soon.”

“I rushed hatless into the white and shining air…” Ted Berrigan

Originally published on ultra