Hats Are Making A Comeback

People are buying hats. Not in Jimmy Cagney-era numbers, but business is far better than the dark-age of the hat industry when Jacqueline Kennedy had the effrontery to forgo a proper hat one Easter Sunday and wear a lace doily on her head.

Herb DelMonica, the founder of the West Oakland hat manufacturing company Sonni of California Inc., remembers those dark, doily days. Those were the days in the ‘60s and ‘70s when he took a stab at sewing dresses, because people, most notably women, weren’t wearing hats.

“They figured, if Jackie Kennedy doesn’t have to wear a hat, why do I?” said DelMonica, 75.

When DelMonica started in the hat business in the 1950s, he estimates there were some 20 separate hat manufacturers in San Francisco alone. New York City - hat central - had hundreds of hat manufacturers.

Today, in all of Northern California, excluding small, custom milliners, the number of manufacturers making traditional blocked hats has dwindled to four.

Sonni of California is one of those.

Owned and operated by the DelMonica family, Sonni of California makes women’s hats. Not the soft, shapeless type you might see adorning the head of your average beachgoer, but hats with an opinion.

Hanging on a forest of hat trees in the DelMonica’s West Oakland factory are clusters of “Titanic” replica hats. Sonni Inc. is producing these for J. Peterman, the upscale mail-order company and soon-to-be retailer. These are not head coverings for the hat shy, they are huge, purple and festooned with ribbons.

Churchgoing ladies make up a good portion of the customers for Sonni Inc. hats. Outside of the local retail outlets, the Oakland-made headwear can be found in department stores across the nation.

During the current fall season, anywhere from 300 to 400 hats a day will emerge from the steaming hat blocks at Sonni. Closer to Easter, that number might jump to 1,000 hats per day.