The Second Century of Paul’s Hat Works
When we profiled Abbie Dwelle, owner of Paul’s Hat Works in the Richmond District, her hattery was approaching the century mark, a local legend with legions of happy customers — some of higher profile than others.
But the history weighed heavily on Dwelle. She represented the shop’s third generation. In 2009 she and three partners, all young women artists and roommates in the city, bought the business from Michael Harris, who had bought it from the original Napoleon “Paul” Marquez. When we caught up to Dwelle in 2017, the partners had faded away. Dwelle was running the shop herself and frank about her misgivings. “It’s a rocky, growing-pains situation,” she told The Frisc.
She loved crafting rabbit fur and toquilla palm fronds into exquisite lids shaped by and for each customer’s personality and style. “When the work is done, all of a sudden I’ve gotten to know this person,” she said in a 2017 video produced by the SF Museums of Fine Arts. Balancing books, tracking inventory, and working regularly past midnight were not as much her thing. “Instead of letting the shop run me, I’m trying to run it,” she told The Frisc.
She didn’t even have time to throw the shop a 100th birthday party.
Now as Paul’s approaches its 101st, Dwelle explained that she has made changes to benefit herself and, ultimately, the shop. It’s open fewer hours to the public. She has stopped taking in repairs of hats made elsewhere. Since custom orders have tripled since 2017, “I feel inspired to continue to protect my hat-making time,” she says.
She’s ready to hire an accountant who has been her consultant to help her be “less seat of the pants and more planning ahead.” Not to say that a buttoned-down era is dawning. Hair-cutting stations, leased out to friends, are still up above, accessible through the shop via a spiral staircase. And more recently, Dwelle realigned the front counter to make space for a piano.
It’s “replenishing” after working all day (“I noodle around,” says Dwelle), and customers can play while they wait: “There’s a huge overlap between musicians and hat wearers.”
In 2017, it was dicey how long Paul’s might last into its second century. Now, Dwelle is celebrating her own 10 year anniversary at the shop. There might even be a 101st birthday party this fall, if she can find time to plan it. Just a guess: Attendees will be required to wear hats.
At Lowell High School, Radical Discourse and Resistors
Two years ago, we reported on a radical experiment at an unradical place: SF’s Lowell High School, the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi. The experiment could come to an end this summer.
Here’s how it started. After a student made a racist poster during Black History Month of 2016, his fellow students and parents insisted the administration provide more than finger-wagging and Kumbaya. The perpetrator’s suspension was not enough.
The school district brought in a nonprofit group, SF-CESS, to organize four years of social-justice training for teachers. Even those who appreciated it acknowledged the methods were rough. Teachers were told that “‘if you don’t actively fight injustice, you are a racist,’” physics teacher Bryan Cooley told The Frisc two years ago. “That was hard to accept. I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
Checking in during the training’s first year at Lowell, our 2017 story cut through the educational and social-justice jargon to explain how SF-CESS worked, why some at Lowell felt the intervention was well past due, and why a cadre of Lowell teachers (or as SF-CSES dubbed them, “resistors”) were incensed about the mandatory training.
Cooley told The Frisc recently that he and other teachers have been inspired by SF-CESS to try new things, like alternative grading systems (with mixed results). But the nonprofit might not come back for its fourth and final year.
SF-CESS executive director Greg Peters says that, because of a leadership change at Lowell, SF-CESS won’t know its status until July. Contacted about SF-CESS, the school’s new principal Dacotah Swett tells The Frisc via email that the decision won’t come until August, in fact, after she meets with school district leadership. (The first day of school is August 19.)
Swett was an assistant principal when SF-CESS came to Lowell and knows the organization well. She has advocated for a homegrown equity program in the past, but it’s unclear if there’s anything at the ready in case SF-CESS isn’t invited back.
When asked for her assessment of SF-CESS, Swett wrote: “Lowell is committed to the mission of ensuring equity for all students and providing a safe and welcoming teaching environment that supports diverse learners.” She declined to comment further.