Interview with a New Zealand hat seller: Cadlow Trading
Posted By Steven Lewis on July 17, 2009
Juana Atkins from Cadlow Trading rocks a bedazzled beret
It’s easy to think that hat sellers are a dying breed because hats are like that thing in the supermarket you don’t notice they sell till you’re looking for it. I came across Cadlow, an online clothing store from New Zealand, through owner Juana Atkins’ Twittering about fedoras.
I asked her how she came to sell hats in her online store. She said she hadn’t thought much about hats or selling them till her eye was caught by “a couple of unusual ones” at a gift fair. Knowing that her teenaged son loved hats, she put in a small order, thinking perhaps that if he did, others would.
Now she has a limited but popular range in which black wool felt fedoras are the hot sellers. The range is growing, with the addition of two fedoras imported from America, one houndstooth and the other a black corduroy. She says trilbies don’t sell as well, unless the have a really good pattern.
New Zealand merino wool cheesecutter (flat cap)
Although the hot sellers are imported, there are Kiwi-made hats in the collection, too: New Zealand merino wool cheesecutters. They sell well but Juana wouldn’t have sourced if a customer hadn’t asked for them, further showing how rewarding a good relationship with an attentive hat seller can be. I can only imagine they’re very warm and would buy one, myself, if I didn’t have a similar Kangol already.
Other customer requests have been for bigger sizes, leading Juana to conclude, “There must be a lot of Kiwi men with big heads because they sell week in and week out.”
The 61 cm fedora is the most popular, which tells me I should move to New Zealand as that’s my size and it’s large enough to be hard to find in some styles. Trying buying a vintage hat on eBay even close to 61 cm.
In terms of trends, Cadlow’s sales show the smaller brimmed (not stingy) fedora has the lead on the wider brim. Winter (it’s winter in this half of the globe) has been great for sales of wool felt fedoras.
One of Cadlow’s best features is its 14-day returns policy (refund or change size), something bound to appeal to first-time hat buyers not sure of their size, although the site includes advice on how to measure head size.
Almost all Cadlow’s sales are within New Zealand, proving they have great taste in the land of the long white cloud. And sales are increasing, particularly among 20-something men.
“Now that I sell hats I am always looking out for them,” says Juana. “NZ men are still pretty conservative. Colourwise for hats, black is number one followed by grey and quite a way behind grey is brown. Anything with colour on it seems to have a very limited market unless it is a really cool retro print in murky greens and browns and orange.
“I found a hat like that that sold out in weeks. I went to reorder only to find out that they had no more and wouldn’t be ordering in any more from overseas as they changed their patterns every year.”
For any hatmakers reading, Juana has a plea “Retro is big and anyone who can make a wool felt fedora with a really cool retro-patterned hat band will have me knocking on their door begging them to wholesale them to me.”
Anyone who, like me, suffers from a cold head should check out those cheesecutters.
You’ll find Cadlow Trading and Juana at www.cadlow.co.nz
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Yay! About time someome recognised this online shop. I’ve been getting my hats from Juana for a while now. Always getting comments as to where I get them from. She deserves some extra exposure!