The bespoke knitted fez I commissioned through Etsy

It’s not every day you get a card inviting you to the post office to pick up a handmade knitted fez from Turkey but yesterday was one of those days for me.

The idea for a knitted fez was not mine, it was Stephen Jones’: the London-based milliner’s current collection includes just such an thing. The whimsy he brings to men’s hats appeals to me and I wanted his fez beanie. Because you can’t buy the Jonesboy label in Australia, this seemed a good excuse to experiment with Etsy the first time.

Etsy is simple so it took only minutes to put up a picture of the Jonesboy hat and a concise request in the Alchemy section (the customer area):

“I would like a hat like the one pictured and an idea of the price. I have a number of wool hats but like this one and would get one if it’s not outrageously priced.”

Within an hour I had received bids from a couple of sellers, the beginning of an exchange of messages that Etsy calls a conversation (your inbox is referred to as your “conversations”, the mailbot is the convobot and so on). The messages give you a chance to ask more questions of the prospective maker or cut to the chase, accepting or rejecting the bid.

In all, I had 11 bids in 24 hours. I grouped them into a spreadsheet with columns for the cost (making + postage), estimated completion date, the maker’s feedback score from other sales, and the location. The total cost of each bid ranged from USD10 (Lithuania) to USD53 (Germany), with bids coming in also from the US, Canada, Turkey and the UK.

Price was not the most important consideration, although it did knock out the $10 bid from Lithuania. I found the sellers I considered seriously  were the ones who were most descriptive, confident and pleasant in their responses.

“I can make you that hat” just didn’t instill trust the way, say, this did:

“Knitted wool hat similar to the photograph, in good quality double knitting yarn (Wendy Mode – 50% merino, 50% acrylic). Colour dark red with black tassle. Note: The hat will be knitted by hand, not machine. It will be knitted on four needles, and therefore seamless. If you wish to save money I can use a 100% acrylic yarn which is cheaper, just convo me. Ditto I can get 100% wool but it will be more expensive.”

Sure, I only understand about half of what she was saying but what mattered was that she obviously knew her onions. And I liked the style of her from her Etsy profile: “Please don’t insult us both by expecting me to work for less than you’d pay in Primark. Anything I sell here has been made by a grown woman in Yorkshire, not a 9yo in the 3rd world, and my overheads are higher LOL!”

But blueskiesuk was not the maker I went with in the end.

For my first Etsy experience I decided to go for the middle of the price range ($39) and a maker from Turkey who promised, “No matter to make a hat as this fez. I know the original fez’s shape and I can make it as close as a twin.”

Blueskiesuk had come in at $51 ($61, if I went with pure merino wool). For my first Etsy experiment I wanted to see what quality I could get in the middle cost range from a supplier who still had great feedback. I thought it would tell me more than going straight for the most expensive supplier, even if I did suspect she was the most expensive for a reason. If BouquetSpecialDesign hadn’t sounded confident and wasn’t located in the home of the fez, I might have canned the experiment side and gone straight for blueskiesuk.

Communication during the process was great. Shortly after commissioning the fez, I had a message on Etsy from BouquetSpecialDesign with a picture of the wool, “This wool’s colour is called in Turkish as “Fez’s Red” . This red colour is special to fez.” And then, about a day later, I got a picture of the finished product and, I have to admit, my heart sank a little.

The Jonesboy hat is a beanie with fez characteristics, a nod at the fez, if you will. The hat from BouquetSpecialDesign is a fez with a nod at the beanie — it’s wool. I can’t fault the workmanship: it’s warm, soft, comfortable and most definitely a knitted fez but it isn’t the “twin” of Stephen Jone’s whimsical winter fez. It’s tall and unsophisticated, too high to be worn without pulling it down on itself, making a lip. In short, it won’t be leaving the house, not on my head; although I do look quite the picture on the sofa watching MasterChef.

I think perhaps it’s time for a conversation with Blueskiesuk…

Twins?