Gentlemen, I was saddened to hear that Art Fawcett retired, and I heard hat his apprentice would be taking over. Does anyone know if they're up and running? Moreover, can anyone provide me with other online custom hatmakers of the same calibre?
Yes, David has taken over the shop and is well underway. Check with him for his wait times. The others on the west side of continent: Mike @NorthWest Hats in Eugene. Michael Gannon in N California. BlackSheep in WA state has somewhere between 1 & 2 year wait list.
I hesitate to include my skill set in their company at this point. In my favour however; my prices are not at their levels either.
I have custom hats from these three and I highly recommend each one (not in any particular order): Falcon Park Hattery, Gannon Hat Co., and Hornskov Hats. I am quite pleased with the craftsmanship of these artisans and all three gave excellent customer service as well as superbly crafted fedoras to my liking.
I was distraught as well when Art retired. All of my custom fedoras were from him, and I have always been proud of that. I love my VS hats. Having said that, I recently put in two orders for new hats. First was from VS, David is wonderful to work with. His turnaround time, for me, was 8 months. That’s fine, I made the arrangements and that’s that. That hat won’t be started until the summer, and I wanted a new hat soon. On the recommendation of several lounge members I also ordered a fedora from Michael Gannon. Turnaround was approximately 8 weeks. I got that hat a week or so ago and it is absolutely fantastic. Workmanship is off the hook, is a gorgeous hat. In fact I’m gonna order another Gannon soon. Hope that helps.
I just had another thought: now that Stephen at Leon Drexler has retired and no one has bought his business...I could bill myself as: "Canada's Top Custom Hatter"....I am the only one but I don't have to advertise that aspect.
Back when I was a teenager and wanted to be a rock star, my first album was going to be called " Best of."
I’d be hesitant to call David Gibson Art’s apprentice. David worked for Art doing most of the restoration and refurbishment work at VS while he also had a full custom hat business of his own. Art was unsuccessful at selling the business as he had hoped and ended up selling a lot of his equipment and tooling. David took over the shop and I believe the customer files. I don’t know if the storefront is open anymore since Covid. Gannon doesn’t make the wide range of styles of hats that some of the others do, but you’ll be hard pressed to get a better fedora no matter how much you’re willing to spend. As for Canada’s new premier hatter: I love his work and you get a whole lot of bang for your buck. As great as Gannon’s hats always have been they are better now than they were three years ago. Practice and experience matter. It’s not reasonable to expect the new guy starting out to match the old masters, but then the new guy charges half as much. It’s all about managing your expectations. I have three hats in Gannon’s queue and five in Wolfbrae’s. They each have their place in the world of custom hats. https://www.thefedoralounge.com/thr...-fur-felt-fedora-hatmakers-and-hatters.77957/ https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/how-many-custom-hat-shops-are-left.102771/
