They have a head for style
POST FALLS – Diane Siverson’s business started with a single hat.
“I said to Ron one day, ‘I think I’m going to start making hats,’” said Diane Siverson, a lifelong seamstress who made her own clothes in elementary school. She made one hat, a big red fabric Victorian hat.
Her husband Ron posted it on eBay and they anxiously waited through the seven-day auction. It sold for $76.
“I said, ‘now I’m in the hat business,’ and it snowballed from there,” Diane Siverson said.
That was in February 2004 and in less than a year, the Siversons have sold 400 handmade hats, launched a Web site and recently expanded into doing style shows. Saturday and Sunday several Lady Diane Hats will be worn at the Bridal Festival at the Spokane Convention Center.
Bridal and wedding hats are a new addition to Lady Diane Hats, which include Victorian, ascot, Kentucky Derby and cloche hats. Each hat is made of fabric. They come in wedding whites and creams, sedate blacks and flamboyant reds, purples and greens. Some are adorned with silk and satin flowers, lace trains, feathers or crystal brooches. Prices range from $49 to $199.
The basement of the Siversons’ Post Falls home has been turned into a hat workshop. While Diane Siverson designs, sews and decorates the hats, Ron oversees communications and marketing, writing letters, managing the Web site, answering customer queries. A former mechanical design engineer, he wrote a mathematical formula for Diane to plug in dimensions to get the right “slope” for each hat.
Siverson learned to sew from her mother, who also taught her quality workmanship.
“My mother was a beautiful seamstress. When she was teaching me to sew she told me, ‘You need to make things as pretty on the inside as they are on the outside. You should be able to wear your clothes inside out.’” As a result, Lady Diane Hats are finished inside and out.
After the couple’s kids left home, Diane Siverson made things to sell at arts and crafts shows: ottomans, serving trays, dried floral arrangements, wreaths, tablerunners and other items. She grew her own flowers, some 7,000 plants each year.
Then she came up with the hat idea.
“I’ve always loved hats,” she said. “Everything came together for me — flower arranging, sewing, color.”
Business has come primarily through word-of-mouth. They recently sold 10 hats to a women’s sidesaddle-riding group. The business’s 100 percent positive feedback on eBay comes from many satisfied customers.
“The hat is even lovelier in person,” wrote one buyer. “Beyond beautiful. Wonderful designer,” said another.
Most of their business is on the East coast and in the Southern states. They’ve sold hats to people in the United Kingdom, Australia, Tasmania and Korea.
Right now eBay is their primary sales tool, but they hope to sell more hats through their Web site, www.ladydianehats.com, which Ron launched a couple of months ago, and to expand into more style shows. They’d like to be featured in magazines and see one of their hats on actress Julia Roberts.
Once people see their hats, they want to buy more, he said. They get many repeat customers.
“Hat people are hat people,” Ron Siverson said.