Luke Song with a replica of the hat he designed for Aretha Franklin to wear during the Inauguration. (Paul Sancya/Associated Press)While the fashion-conscious were focused on Michelle Obama on Inauguration Day, it was Aretha Franklin who pulled off the most unexpected sartorial coup.
Few people covered their heads that day, despite the cold. But the Queen of Soul did. She reached back to her gospel roots and adorned herself as if for church, topping her outfit with a dove-gray wool chapeau, dominated by a giant bow set off at a jaunty angle and ringed in sparkling Swarovski crystals.
The hat was an instant sensation. Even before Ms. Franklin had finished singing My Country, Tis of Thee on the inaugural podium, calls began pouring in to her hat designer, Luke Song, 36, of Mr. Song Millinery in Detroit, Ms. Franklins home town.
Aretha Franklin performed at the inauguration on Tuesday. (Ron Edmonds/Associated Press)A lot of my clients know my signature style, and they knew instantly that it was my hat, Mr. Song said in a telephone interview Friday. They called to verify it, and then they just started screaming at the top of their lungs.
Asked to define that style, he said he couldnt quite put it in words, except to say that he liked hats that frame the face.
The calls overwhelmed him, he said, and before long there were reporters asking for interviews as word of the hat went viral. It was still a current topic on television three days after the inaugural, discussed on The View and mocked by Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres.
And Mr. Song has been flooded with hat orders, creating an instant backlog of three to four weeks.
But what he is selling is a similar design to The Hat, which he designed specifically for Ms. Franklin with her help not an exact duplicate.
Her particular hat, I will not sell a copy, even if someone offers me a million dollars, he said. I have to keep it exclusive to her. I made it for her.
If he did make any exact duplicates, they would cost more than $500 apiece, he said; the near-replicas, which will use different fabric (satin ribbon, held together with horsehair) and smaller bows, are being sold for $179. (He did not charge Ms. Franklin anything for hers.)
The story line of a small family hat shop suddenly put on the map by a superstar is a romantic one, but it doesnt quite fit the facts, Mr. Song said. Yes, his business started small, in a store opened by his mother, an immigrant from South Korea, in 1982. But Ms. Franklin has been a customer for two decades, and the business long ago outgrew the store: Mr. Song, who studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York and first thought he wanted to become a painter, dropped out after two years to return home and transform the business into a sizeable garment and millinery supplier, Moza Inc.
It started out as a store, and now that is only about 5 percent of our operation, said Mr. Song, who is chief executive of Moza. Our main operation is wholesale manufacturing and distributing. We ship our products to about 500 boutiques, most of them in the United States, and do a lot of private labeling, particularly with womens suits and dresses, though the Mr. Song Millinery name is still on the companys own label, and on the sign over its door. Most of his clientele is African-American women, and most of them buy outfits for church.
Theres still some magic in the story for Mr. Song, though. Since Tuesday, he said, the Detroit office has not been able to handle the load of hat orders, so they are being run through his agents in Dallas.
The order numbers exceed what we can physically make, he said. Our vendors say the clients cant wait three or four weeks, so some of them are just buying up our inventory, just so they can have the label. Im in disbelief of whats going on.
Mr. Song said that he had been having a strong season even before the Inauguration, despite the sour economy. His theory is that while customers are scaling back on buying clothes generally, they are still buying hats, because a new hat can change the look of an outfit for less money than a whole new ensemble would cost.
So the season was phenomenal, he said. This was icing on the cake. But it is a life-changing event.
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