Where “old hat” is a compliment
At some point, whether it was Brad Pitt styling a beat-up porkpie in Snatch or Michael Jackson flipping a fedora in the Billie Jean music video, men’s hats became fashionable again. Mail-order catalogs and brick-and-mortar hat stores began cropping up everywhere. Meyer the Hatter had been there all along. Opened in 1894, it is both the oldest and the largest hat store in the South.
Paul, the great-grandson of the original owner, runs the shop today. He took over the business when his dad, Mister Sam, turned 80 years old. Now more than 90, Mister Sam still comes to work every day—he’s been a fixture at Meyer the Hatter since 1946. “I wasn’t brought up to chase balls on a golf course or putter in the garden,” he explains. He married Marcelle in 1959 and thereafter she too has been an everyday presence. Paul’s brother and two sons also work at the store. The result is a shop filled with family banter and congenial complaining.
Info
Address 120 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130, +1.504.525.1048, www.meyerthehatter.com | Hours Mon–Sat 10am–5:45pm| Tip More movies are made in New Orleans each year (usually 90 to 100) than anywhere else in the United States. Keep an eye out for the Day-Glo signs posted all over town that point film crews to current shooting locations.
Hats are everywhere: stacked three and four high on counters, dangling from random hooks, resting on glass shelves, and tucked inside the many towers of shipping cartons that clog the long, narrow aisles. Straw hats from Ecuador are joined by berets from France, bowlers from England, an Italian straw boater if you want to look like a gondolier, or the yet-to-be-sold cherry-red beaver-fur homburg.
Prices are reasonable, generally between $75 and $250, and the service is—as to be expected in a 120-year-old-family business—exceptional. The Meyer clan will give you lessons in hat etiquette (don’t pinch a hat) and expert advice on what style fits your face.
With their reputation and vast inventory, it is not surprising that Meyer the Hatter is the go-to store in New Orleans for costume designers in search of the perfect topper to complete a film character’s look. Notes Mister Sam, “You don’t look at John Wayne’s shoes.”
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