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Byrnie Utz Hats / Has a head for what we want

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ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Jan. 20, 1961: John F. Kennedy's inauguration. A dark day for men's hats. He stepped up to the dais bareheaded. Jackie wore a smart little pillbox. That was it. Hats off for men, hats on for women. But milliners have always had help from the movies; "Maltese Falcon" to "Urban Cowboy" to "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (The classic Stetson Temple, modeled after Indiana Jones' hat, is still the company's No. 1 seller.) Be it berets, boaters, bonnets, derbies . . . the hat has always had its staunch supporters: Magritte, Churchill, Lincoln, Wolfe. Mad hatters, all. And now? The nation's gone casual. Baseball caps, ski hats and their ilk. No matter. Since 1934 hats of all manner have been found, sitting 20,000 strong, at Byrnie Utz Hats in downtown Seattle. Shawn Ferry, Byrnie Utz vice president whose hat of preference is the derby, sizes up the chapeau.

Q: Who buys a quality hat these days?

A: We get a wide range of people. From the younger people it's all fashion, like with the Kangols, to the 80- to 90-year-old guys who've been wearing hats their whole life. And we're getting a lot more people who buy straw hats to keep out of the sun.

Q: What is the worst breach of hat etiquette?

A: There's not too much of the "when you step inside you have to take your hat off" anymore. Maybe in church or really nice restaurants.

Q: How many hats should a gentleman have?

A: A lot of the guys will have maybe two or three. One for summer, one for winter. I have somewhere around 60, but I've worked here on and off since I was 10.

Q: Most inexpensive to expensive?

A: From $6, a cotton bucket-shaped casual hat, to $675, a Panama hat handwoven from strands of Ecuadorean toquilla grass.

Q: How can one tell a fine hat?

A: Most of the nice felt ones are either going to be rabbit or beaver fur, and you can feel the difference between that and wool.

Q: How should one care for one's hat?

A: The main thing is to handle it by the brim rather than the crown. Don't dry it fast or leave it in the back window of the car. If they dry naturally at room temperature you don't get problems with shrinking.

Q: The baseball hat: The end of civilization as we know it?

A: It gives you a false sense of shade. Farmers who wear them were getting a lot of skin cancer on their noses and on their ears and the backs of their necks. It only shades your eyes, as opposed to the protection a brim all the way around your eyes gives you.