When word got out that four young San Francisco women were taking over Paul’s Hat Works—the venerable Panama hat shrine, which opened here in 1919—it was like hearing that Sarah Jessica Parker and her hottie buddies from Sex and the City had opened up a truck-stop diner in South Dakota. Illogical but true.

“Paul’s Hat Works just seemed like a logical extension of our lives,” says Kirsten Hove, a twenty-nine-year-old native San Franciscan tailor and operator of a pre-school facility. She’s now also Paul’s Hat co-owner with roommates Abbie Dwelle, Olivia Griffin, and Wendy Hawkins, a quartet that shares a dedication to clothing and accessory design.

“I love to make costumes,” adds Dwelle, a twenty-three-year-old baker’s assistant from South Dakota, and Paul’s self-proclaimed “builder and visionary.”

Olivia, a twenty-two-year-old San Francisco State alumna from Mendocino County, fills the role of “director of marketing and community outreach” for the hat shop, and Wendy, a twenty-five-year-old Michigan native, also co-owner of a San Francisco grocery store, is in charge of bookkeeping and human resources. With youthful enthusiasm and a passion for classic fashion, Kirsten, Wendy, Abbie, and Olivia intend to “bring back the hat.”

Paul's Hat Works's new owners (l to r): Abbie Dwelle, Olivia Griffin, Wendy Hawkins, and Kirsten Hove

And not just any old hat, but straw Panama hats—true gossamer creations, creamy in tone, and as finely woven as exquisite linen, weighing no more than a few ounces with a value exponentially far in excess of their weight.

While certainly fine and costly straw hats can be found in upscale specialty stores in London, New York, Honolulu, and elsewhere, even those “Panamas” are “off the rack,” so to speak. They’re not custom-made and custom-fitted. Here in San Francisco, the Panama hat envelope has been stretched to its furthest limits, and these four “newbies” intended to keep it there.

Devotees who have equated Panama hats with the dearest of extraordinary possessions have included Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D., Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Sydney Greenstreet, Nina Foch, Greta Garbo, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Charlie Chan, and Willie Brown, just to name a few.

The timing for the takeover was perfect. In the outer reaches of the Richmond, master hatter Michael Harris was packing it in. He was selling off his remaining stock of Panamas and felt toppers and all of the antique equipment of his craft, including his ancient hatter’s apparatus, the conformature, which he sets upon the skulls of Panama hat zealots to determine the exact shape and dimensions of their heads.

Harris has been el jefe of Panama hats in San Francisco, and indeed in much of the world, since he took over Paul’s Hat Works in 1980. He apprenticed in the art of straw hat making from the godson of the original owner, Kelly Bowling, a Peruvian merchant seaman, and became the keeper of the Panama hat flame. For years Harris has been acquiring the finest unfinished straw hat “bodies” from a small town in Ecuador, Montecristi, then custom finishing them here.

Ecuador has been producing fine straw hats since as early as the seventeenth century. But it was in the 1800s that it first exported and sold them in Panamanian ports. Workers on the Panama Canal wore them to ward off the tropical sun. Hence: Panama hats.

The four contemporary chicas prepared for the specifics of their prestigious new role by apprenticing themselves to master hatter Harris. But crafting wearable creations and collaborating is not new to the foursome; they founded Super Fragile Catalytic Productions, which puts on musical shows to raise money for the Sex Information Hotline and other organizations, and belong to the Scary Undertakers, a group that renovates Halloween outfits.

“We were all busy and led active, hectic lives,” states Kirsten, who operates a cloth-hat-making workshop in the Tenderloin along with a group called the Faithful Fools Street Ministry, and is in charge of production and design for Paul’s. “As roommates, we were used to doing things together. We were in the habit of inviting people over to our flat to make costumes, wigs, and props for neighborhood productions.”

“You could say that the four of us have an appreciation for the traditional crafts and strong sense of style,” Olivia sums up. “We believe that these attributes are an overlooked aspect of many young people’s lives. Fine Panama hats shouldn’t just be on the heads of old establishment types, but should be extraordinary possessions of young stylish men—and women, too.”

Ernest Beyl, who writes frequently for the Nob Hill Gazette, is seen here wearing one of his several Panama hats created by Michael Harris—this one a Montecristi Optimo (the Charlie Chan model).