Rotter Talks Hats

Ralph Blumenthal – NY Times

Bruno Lacorazza’s fur felt hats come in black, black or black.

But there the uniformity ends as Mr. Lacorazza, 47, Colombian-born hatter to the Lubavitch Hasidim and other Orthodox Jews who keep their heads covered, arrived in Brooklyn from Miami last week with cartons of exciting new styles retailing for about $125, along with the classics.

Black may be the new black (and the old black) in Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park. But if you thought that Hasidic hats all look the same — black brim, black crown, black band and bow — you would be wrong. Mirroring the subtle but significant differences among their Orthodox Jewish wearers, there are big differences in the hats when you know where to look, and last week Mr. Lacorazza, who visits New York a couple of times a year, pointed them out.

Besides hats with the new peach finish and dimensional brims, he brought styles he called Argento, with a large crown and brim; Solo, with a lower crown and smaller brim; Dilusso, a compromise between the two; bar mitzvah hats scaled down for 13-year-old-heads; and tall “up hats” with slightly curled-up brims, preferred by many rabbis; and of course the ever-popular fedora with three dents in the crown — the “Lubavitch pinch” favored by the group’s late leader, the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and now by many of his followers.

The Lubavitchers shun the stylized hats, preferring the more generic fedoras in a style called Yeshivish. But for special occasions and the Sabbath, others don the shtreimel — a wide, round fur hat, costing into the thousands — which Mr. Lacorazza does not make.

Mr. Lacorazza began his rounds Tuesday with a visit to the shop that gave him his first orders when he started out in 1988, Bencraft Hatters at 236 Broadway in Williamsburg.

“I came to say hello, show a new hat with a new finish,” he told the owner, Stanley Goldstein, 77, who started selling hats in 1948.

Religious Jews keep their heads covered as a sign of respect for God, but the headgear varies by tradition. Many of the hat styles go back centuries to the various Hasidic courts, or branches, in Poland, Hungary, Romania and elsewhere. Observant Jews wear the skullcap even under other hats.

Black is not mandated for clothing, although dark, conservative colors are customary, but more colorful garments, particularly for women, are common for the Sabbath and festivals.

At Feltly Hats, at 185 Hewes Street, Mr. Greenbaum gave Mr. Lacorazza a big hug. “Bruno is No. 1,” he said. “There never was such a person.”

At Mr. Lacorazza’s next stop, Primo Hatters, at 366 Kingston Avenue in Crown Heights, Shlomie Rotter asked for samples of two new fedoras before placing an order, probably 300 to 400. He also said he was considering the new peach homburgs. He praised Mr. Lacorazza’s hats. “They’re sturdy, they last,” he said. “No blemishes, no elephant skin.”

Mr. Lacorazza, Mr. Rotter and Mr. Rotter’s father, Sol, were talking business when the door flew open. “I’m coming in tomorrow for a hat!” shouted Mendel Schachter, 25, a rabbinical student.

He had just gotten engaged, Mr. Schachter announced, introducing his fiancée, Chaya Rochel Kershner, 23, a pharmacy technician. His family was flying in from Melbourne and he invited everyone to the engagement party the following night at the Jewish Children’s Museum.

The couple started to go. “I thought you want a hat,” Sol Rotter said.

“I’m going to come in tomorrow,” Mr. Schachter promised.

Business was good, the elder Mr. Rotter said. A Lubavitcher, he said, might “go through three hats a year.” And families tended to be large, ensuring future customers.

“People always use hats,” he said. “It’s a necessity, like food.”