[MUSIC PLAYING] KERYN NICHOLSON: You
see hats everywhere. Even on the runway in Paris,
you're seeing cowboy hats. At all these
Coachella festivals. Hats are making a huge
comeback, for sure. [MUSIC PLAYING] We are inside of The
Old Tobacco House, which is sort of an art hub here
in Fresno, and then also the home of Nicholson Hat Co. My dad was always a hat
person, and he would always pass down his old hats to me. But they're always way too big
or just didn't fit properly. But I never dreamed
of making my own. Once I met Paul, who owns
The Old Tobacco House-- he's a full time artist-- kind of sparked
something in me again. So we started doing shows in
Los Angeles and Palm Springs, and met a hat maker at
one of these shows in LA. And I just fell in love with it. I just-- I loved how he was
taking something that, you know, equipment that's
100 plus years old and using it to create
something in this day and age. So I was fascinated by that. Came home a week later,
canceled a trip I had planned. Ordered my first set of
felts and my first steamer, and just said, OK, I'm
just going to try it. Started an Instagram account,
and it just sort of gradually took off from there. And here we are. When I first started, it
was probably 80% women. Now that it's been almost
a couple of years into it, now I'm seeing a lot
of farmers coming in. A lot of just kind of the more
modern kind of wide, flat brims that you might
wear at a festival. But then I'm getting
stingy brims, like pork pies and fedoras,
and all that kind of stuff. really not just women anymore. I'm getting a mixture of
a little bit of everybody. So when someone
comes in they have all of these different
colors to choose from. I will take the raw
felts and essentially steam the heck out of it. It gets really, really, really
wet, I mean, to the point where the whole felt
is like drenched. So depending on what shape they
want, if they want a fedora, you know, if they
want a cowboy hat. If they want-- I mean, it's really
an crease they want. A diamond crease. I do everything by hand. No hat is ever the same. I mean, I have people
say, oh, I want this hat, you know, off your Instagram. And I'll say, absolutely, I'll
get it as close as possible, but it will definitely
be different. Then I will light it on fire. It basically burns
away the excess fur. So it gives it that
smooth texture. And it's a little scary,
because it's a very expensive piece of material. [MUSIC PLAYING] When they come and we-- I sit them down, I
put the hat on them, and for the first time they
walk out with their hat on, it's just the coolest feeling. People are starting to go more
towards supporting the makers and supporting
the local artists. We live here. You want the valley to thrive. People are seeking out
makers in their own area. So it's just going to-- you know, when someone supports
me, if they are also an artist, I find a way to
support them too. So it just keeps giving back. [MUSIC PLAYING]
