Tariffs swamp small-town Colorado hat maker
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AULT, Colo. — When other toddlers had blankets, Travis Hamblen had a hat.
He used steam from the family teakettle to shape his first brim at 13 years old. After he dropped out of high school, his grandfather convinced him to return to the classroom by bribing him with a hat.
For the past five years, Hamblen has hawked hats from his store, Hamblen Hats in Ault, Colorado. Come summer, he hits the road with his sons selling his wares at rodeos. Hamblen makes custom hats, sells premade models from Atwood, Twister and Serratelli and mends worn ones.
Thanks to pop culture trends like the TV show “Yellowstone” and musicians who don Western wear, Hamblen said that demand for hats is strong.
But over the past five years, he’s faced hiccup after hiccup — from supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, to a fur supply weakened by the war in Ukraine and, most recently, steep tariffs on straw hats that pass through China and Mexico.
Video: Cormac McCrimmon, Rocky Mountain PBS
“The world economy is really influencing cowboy culture,” said Hamblen.
On April 9, the Trump Administration announced a 90 day pause on reciprocal tariffs for most countries except China, for which he raised tariff rates to 125%.
Despite the cowboy hat’s strong regional association with the West, international forces have long influenced the iconic headwear. John B. Stetson’s first cowboy hat, called the Boss of the Plains, fused European designs with a wide brim common on Mexican sombreros.
Early 20th century photos testify to the widespread popularity of hats. Historians and hat fanatics still debate why they fell out of fashion. Some blame John F. Kennedy, who was the first president to not wear a hat during his inauguration. Others blame the rise of cars, which offered limited headroom and reduced the time people spent waiting outside for buses or trains.
“I'm a firm believer that hats never die,” said Hamblen.
Most hats Hamblen makes begin their journey in Ukraine, where the climate is well-suited for raising rabbits and hares, whose pelts are used for high-quality cowboy hats. European diners eat more rabbits than Americans, meaning fur is readily available as a byproduct, Hamblen said.
Workers in Kiev, Ukraine process the fur Hamblen uses. Although the factory has continued to operate, “you're not getting [fur] as readily available because you are shipping supplies out of a war zone,” said Hamblen.
From Ukraine, the fur often travels to felting factories in Portugal where workers combine different types of fur to form the body of a hat.
Most hats Hamblen makes are a blend of beaver and hare.
Hamblen works with a company in Winchester, Tennessee that builds hat bodies. Hat bodies contain the rough shape that he builds upon to fulfill custom orders.
Once the hat body reaches Hamblen in Northern Colorado, he takes precise measurements of a person’s head using a tool called a conformateur.
Next, Hamblen uses steam to stretch the hat to size. He sands the felt and uses a blowtorch to burn loose hairs. After ironing the brim, the final step is to sew a sweatband into the hat, punch holes for ventilation and lacquer the outside.
“I always tell people, hats are similar to pickups. If you want them to last a while, you need to change the oil. When the hat gets wet, the fibers will expand and you need to iron them back out flat and really take that time to keep them up,” said Hamblen.
Depending on the materials and design, custom fur hats can cost as much as $1,600.
When summer arrives, many cowboys turn to cooler straw hats.
“All the straw hats are built in China and the majority of them are finished in Mexico. Some of the shipments coming up are having up to 60% tariffs on them, so a hat that used to cost $180 is costing well over $200,” said Hamblen.
Hamblen, who prides himself on providing hats “for everybody’s budget,” said tariffs have been “a tough pill to swallow.”
President Donald Trump’s tariff policy is largely unpopular. According to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, 97 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 44 percent of Republicans believe the tariffs will harm the American economy in the short term. More than half of all voters think it will hurt in the long term.
Nearly three-quarters of Americans are expecting higher prices in the next six months, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The polling shows a growing unease around the cost of living, which is one of the reasons, experts say, that Trump was elected in the first place.
Now, Hamblen is scouring the marketplace for suppliers who can offer better deals or are using alternative materials, like palm leafs.
“I don't see the majority of our customer base quitting wearing hats because of the tariffs,” he said.
Hamblen's biggest question about tariffs is whether bringing textile jobs back to the U.S. is even feasible.
“We’ve become a really disposable society. When it comes to finding people that can run a sewing machine to put a sweatband back in, wash a hat, block a hat, rebuild a hat. A lot of that stuff is gone,” said Hamblen.
“You're paying somebody $25, $30 an hour to do that work [here] versus half in Mexico.”
Hamblen said that he’s confident that the U.S. will “get through it,” but as a small business owner, there’s little he can do to control his fate.
“I know that it sucks for me, but I know that I can't do anything about it right now except hope that whatever we're trying to target by doing these, that it gets accomplished quick,” said Hamblen.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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