It may be January, but we still feel cold air at the door and even colder raindrops on our hair. Common knowledge says one of the best ways to stay warm is to cover your head, but that scruffy ski beanie just doesn’t feel right in the city. Enter Pistil Designs, a hat company based in the old roller rink in Hood River, OR.
Pete Hixson, Tood Douglass, and Forrest Jones are the three owners, designers, and everything else behind this young company that is just entering its fourth year and is already being stocked in REIs and garnering national media. Lucky for us, they’re also carried locally in boutiques (see www.pistildesigns.com). The three owners work together and occasionally break free of the office to have fun in the Columbia River Gorge. Tood is a self-described textile nut who says, “If I travel I’m always dragging a rug home.” Along with Forest, a graphic designer and outdoorsman, and Peter, and outdoor industry veteran, they created a company that has passed the crucial third year mark that so many small businesses struggle to reach.
In 2006 Pistil added a men’s line, which Tood feels, “really thrilled about because it was developed out of talking to customers at shows.” The result is stylish and high quality men’s hats fit “to rake the yard or wear on the street in Manhattan.”
The men’s Oxide hat in brushed acrylic is refined and sturdy while the Johnny gives the traditional look a boost with extra fine merino wool and cashmere in an eye-catching pattern.
–Carissa Wodehouse
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