Passing the Hat

Edison Baron’s graceful hands work a piece of felt, stretching and tugging, creasing and cutting it, until they’ve shaped a brim with a slight upturn and coaxed a crown into an unmistakable pinch.

A fedora is born.

Baron has been performing this alchemy in felt for decades, first as a hat maker for the Hollywood institution Western Costume, then as owner, for the past 10 years, of Baron California Hats in Burbank, turning out chapeaus for films and television, as well as custom work for aficionados.

Think of a movie star, think of a signature role, focus on the hat, and that’s the work of Eddy Baron: John Wayne (pick any western), Harrison Ford (as Indiana Jones), Paul Hogan (as Crocodile Dundee), Jim Carrey (as the Mask), Kevin Costner (as Wyatt Earp), Jeff Bridges (as Wild Bill Hickock).

“We make hats for more than 45 movies,” says the 66-year-old Colombia native, who came to Los Angeles in 1968 to practice his trade after training in his father’s hat factory. “But now,” he says, “I don’t want to work so hard.”

Baron would rather sleep through the night than toil until 2 or 3 a.m. “[The studio] says, ‘OK, we need 20 hats, very quickly.’ When? ‘Yesterday.’ ”

But as Baron segues into semi-retirement, he doesn’t have to worry about his rare craft becoming extinct. He recently sold his business to 33-year-old Mark Mejia, a former science technician with the L.A. city schools.

“It was just time for a change,” Mejia says, explaining why he did a 180 after a 15-year career. “I had a very rewarding job, but I’m a people person. And I enjoy hats. Hat people are happy people, and I’m a happy person.”

Mejia began dabbling in hat making about a year ago after a friend introduced him to hand-woven Montecristi Panama hats from Ecuador. He needed blocks to finish some hat bodies and scoured the Yellow Pages for resources.

Baron’s shop was one of precious few.

“As soon as I walked in I said, ‘Oh, wow,’ ” he recalls, the awe still in his voice. “Then I heard Mr. Baron’s story . . . and not only did he have blocks for sale, but the whole shop was for sale. Then my challenge was, can I do this?”

Mejia bought the shop in December in a deal that includes an apprenticeship in making, restoring, re-blocking and cleaning hats.

The shop sits on a stretch of Burbank Boulevard dotted with chili dog stands and small manufacturers. Up front on the sales floor are rows and rows of felt and straw hats, from fedoras to Western styles to porkpies, many of them finished with stitching or trims by Baron’s daughter, Clara.

The back workshop consists of a long wooden table equipped with two lamp-sized forms that emit steam with the press of a foot pedal, on which the felt is stretched and softened. Vintage iron tools for shaping brims rest on a hot plate.

Off to the side is a small room housing felt hat bodies in wool and beaver fur blends, domestic and imported, in shades from pale beige to chocolate, gray, olive and black. Still another room holds dozens of blocks.

These molds, some worn as smooth as driftwood after years of use, are used to shape the crowns of tri-corners, stovepipes, top hats, derbies, gamblers, Viking helmets, grand Napoleons, pointy clown cones and Smokey Bear toppers. (Baron is the official supplier for Smokey at several national parks.) One shelf holds a selection of miniature blocks small enough to be for children’s hats--but aren’t.

“Believe it or not,” Mejia says, “we make a lot of hats for organ grinders’ monkeys.” Some pampered dogs and cats have also had hats commissioned by their owners.

But men make up most of the shop’s clientele (women usually go to milliners). About 80% of the business is costuming, and the rest is custom work.

Creating hats for films or TV begins when the costume designer comes to the shop with sketches, photos or a snippet of video footage. The shop’s reference books help ensure historical accuracy.

“It has to be right,” Mejia says. “There’s a lot of tweaking here and there.”

Costume designer Dan Moore, who worked with Baron on films such as “Wild Bill,” “Geronimo” and “Last Man Standing,” explains that subtle differences can mean a lot. In “Wild Bill,” for example, the brim on the star’s western hat communicates something about the character.

“Jeff Bridges is such a stickler for [authenticity], it’s how he gets into the character,” Moore says. “I’m looking at a picture of him from the movie right now, and there’s a rakish tilt to the brim. You always want to tell a story with the clothes, and hats are a great way of [doing that]--it’s a quick visual.” Moore says Baron needs little direction. His sense of what a costumer wants is innate.

“Eddy is a true artist. He’s just an incredible resource.”

Men seeking custom hats, Mejia says, usually know exactly what they want. Once measurements are taken, customers select the weight and color of the body that will be transformed into a homburg, derby, fedora or cowboy style. Old favorites can be transformed--a crown can be lowered, a brim trimmed. Creating a new hat takes about a week, and the cost is about $160.

Michael Gottlieb happened upon Baron’s by accident. “I love hats more than anything,” says the writer-producer, “and when I went in there I got lost. I realize it was not just a hat store, but something very special. No one really understands what they’re selling anymore, and to see someone like Mr. Baron take pride in what he does, and really love it, is really wonderful.”

Mejia plans to change little about the way the shop is run; the name will stay the same. He’d like to do more custom work and add more imported Montecristis to the stock--women’s as well as men’s.

And the shop will continue to funnel a percentage of the Montecristi proceeds to math and science education in the towns where the hats are produced.

“The most important thing for me,” Baron says, “is that I want the tradition carried on. . . . And Mark has good hands for making hats.”