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Arizona hamlet gets hip Bisbee, Ariz. -- A small crowd has gathered in the saloon of the Bisbee Grand Hotel. Frustration flashes in some voices, anger in others. Yet another fire has claimed a Bisbee home. The group thinks an arsonist is to blame. Talk turns to vigilantism. While they're not the Bisbee Mob of 1881 (that pack tore into nearby Tombstone and lynched a man whom a judge had set free), tonight's saloon visitors remind one of this town's rough-and-tumble roots. In many charming ways, Bisbee remains a prisoner of yesteryear. And that time-capsule quality has trained a broadening national spotlight on the town that copper built. Travel & Leisure has flagged Bisbee as "The Next Sante Fe," while Rolling Stone recently dubbed it a "hot vacation spot." None of this is news to hippies, who first encamped here in the '70s, establishing an arts colony whose poetry festivals attracted the likes of Allen Ginsberg. That aura remains, echoed in today's poetry readings, concerts and art galleries filled with wild landscape paintings and abstract sculpture. But while there is excitement about Bisbee's new-found fame, some residents are wary of being hot-spot homeowners. "We're like a diamond that's finally been cut," says Rick Hossman of Mule Mountain Trading, one of two dozen shops and galleries that dominate this hamlet of 3,000. "The people make it special. I'd like to see things stay that way." Bisbee sits in a natural bowl in the Mule Mountains. At an elevation of 5,000 plus feet, it is spared Arizona's searing heat. While there isn't much to do here (window-shop, tour the Copper Queen mine), the town explodes with atmosphere. At night, lit by meager strands of dim bulbs, Bisbee recalls an Italian hilltop village. By day, its undulating, sinuous streets bring to mind San Francisco in the 1800s. Bisbee was founded in 1880, and copper soon drew as many as 20,000 people. The town commanded its own stock-exchange board, where men would gather to watch their money's fate. The site is now the Stock Exchange bar, the battered green chalkboard standing silent tribute to Bisbee's roaring past. When the reigning mining company, Phelps Dodge, closed shop in 1974, the town was on its last legs. Hippies seeking sun and cheap living saved Bisbee from becoming another Arizona ghost town. "I first came in '74. Paper bags were blowing down the streets. It seemed like every day was Sunday," says Grant Sergot. "There's a tremendous creativity here. I don't know if it's the metals in the air or just having time to think." Sergot channels that creative energy into his craft: fashioning straw hats per customers' specifications at his Optimo Custom Panama Hatworks. Only shops in San Francisco and Sante Fe provide such intimate service, he says, and at higher prices. The quality of the straw weaving ranges from Grade 1 (course, $20) to Grade 20 (virtually seamless, $5,000-plus). Faye Dunaway bought one. And a few months ago, Tom Selleck, in the area shooting Showtime's Ruby Jean and Joe, popped in and got two.| Bisbee's steady stream of foreign visitors (many Germans and some Eastern Europeans) seek out Sergot's wares. And so do locals able to afford booming housing prices. "Property values have doubled or tripled in the last five years," says Doris Turner of OK Property Management and Real Estate. She says a fixer-upper going for $5,000 in 1975 now would fetch $50,000-plus. Nonetheless, Bisbee's hills remain dotted mostly with modest tin-roofed homes. A walk up Brewery Gulch, named during the days when beer flooded miners' eager mouths, finds life subdued. Children play, wind rustles the trees, laundry waves lazily. As one climbs, the gulch narrows and homes decay. Car doors keep a porch chair company. Cracked steps lead to an empty foundation. The faded sign on an old grocery advertises Carnation Ice Cream. Suddenly, a mutt rounds the corner. He stops, looks up, then hangs his head and continues up the path. Somehow, you know he's not lost. And therein lies Bisbee's intoxicating appeal; it is a town fast dissappearing from the American landscape, a friendly place where everyone knows your name. That's why Cristina Plascencia came. She spent the past few decades in Carmel, Calif., and watched that seaside village get super trendy. A few weeks ago she opened 55 Main, an art gallery for everything from South American crafts to dolls tacked onto crucifixes. "I watched Carmel go from an artist community to a resort community. Here, artists can afford to be starving artists," she says with a smile. I found I missed belonging to a small group of people who are accountable to each other." Not to mention tolerant. "You'll go to a bar and see a gay person, a lawyer and a cowboy all sitting together, arguing over who's going to buy the next drink," says Hossman. Indeed, the stretch of Highway 80 near town is kept clean courtesy of the local gay and lesbian community. Adds Plascencia, " You think 'small Arizona town' and you assume conservative and redneck. But we're progressive." With Bisbee starting to attract more and more attention, hat master Sergot exhorts anyone moving here to "please get involved in the community." A lack of that sentiment has brought much-publicized unrest in Sante Fe, whose residents blame the idle and often absent rich for ruining their once tight-knit town. Says Hossman: "We're being compared to Sante Fe, but I don't want that. I don't want to stop being a town and start just being a tourist attraction." Not to worry. On each storefront window hangs a photocopied, hand written note, evidence that tragedy only fuels Bisbee's communal spirit. It reads: "Fire clean-up for Jill. Bring rakes, shovels and a shoulder to cry on."
The Bisbee News He has three years toward a master's degree in social work. He was a timber faller in the lumber industry. He has worked as a waiter and a maitre d'. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles. He has sculpted in marble and alabaster. S. Grant Sergot is a man of many hats. The Bisbee entrepreneur, owner of a custom hatworks at 41 Main St., now plys his artistry at Optimo, in the historic district, where he fits raw body hats imported from Panama, molding and shaping them along classic lines until he gives them what he describes as "form appropriate to the wearer." A visit to Sergot's shop feels like a step back in time, to another era, when a choice of hats was the serious decision of every elegant gentleman and lady. He features some 200 hats in his establishment -- all sizes, styles and price ranges. There are casual, formal, sun and business styles, for men, women and children, all made of the paja toquilla plant of Ecuador and Central America. His handwoven Panama straws come from Ecuador where they are crafted by descendants of the Incas who first wove the plant for water vessels. "These weavers learn their art as children and devote their entire lifetimes to it," he is eager to explain to customers who come to browse or to learn about his product line. "Sometime I would like to bring some of them here, to demonstrate their craft in some public way." Prices for Sergot's hats can range from $20 to $300... from $6,000 or $9,000, he said, and the choice of bands -- all bias cut hem facings -- contributes to the uniqueness of each creation. The grade of the weaving and the intricacies of the pattern determine the value, Sergot told The Bisbee News. "Grade three looks like burlap," he said, " with grades 10 and 11 resembling cotton weave. By grade 14, it is looking like linen, and 15 has the appearence of silk. Seventeen looks like fine silk," he continued, " with 20, the finest weave, resembling heavy paper." Sergot said once a customer has chosen a particular shade and grade of weaving, picking the specific brim and crown height, he begins his artistry. Using Eastern closed-grain wood hatblocks and steam for the shaping process, Sergot puts the soul into the hat. Eventually, he said, he hopes to set up a complete basement studio to show visitors the many facets of an operational hatworks. How did he master this unusual craft? "It's self-taught, really. It has evolved from experimentation, trial and error. I had to learn about drying times, moisture content, about shaping, about styles..." Incas began weaving thousands of years ago and hats date back to prehistoric times, Sergot said. Only in the past 50 years have people not relied on headgear. "That's one of the reasons there is so much skin cancer today. People need that protection from the sun. Medical factors will heavily influence fashion in the future," he said.
Tucson Guide Quarterly ~ Summer 2000 In the early morning, the ringing sounds of hammer on metal echo down a Tucson street as a blacksmith slowly shapes a twisting piece of iron. Soon it will become a gatepost. Or perhaps part of a headboard. The man with the big shoulders won't know what it will be until the fire and hammer reveal its future form to him. A few blocks away, a man with a long black ponytail sits quietly on a stool before a sheet of turquoise leather. He pauses and studies the sheen on the flawless surface. With his right hand, he takes a sharp blade and begins to slowly cut a design through the leather destined to become a briefcase. And in the old mining town of Bisbee, a hatmaker picks up a felt hat that he found at a garage sale. He paid $6 for the crumpled hat, thinking, perhaps he could make something of it. He places the brim into a plume of steam and slowly, gently begins to turn the edge up into a stylish curve. Yes, a bit of its style remains in the felt, just waiting to be shaped into view. These are among the last remaining artisans of the Old West --
a few serious craftsmen, who strive for historical authenticity
in their wares and use many techniques from earlier centuries. People
who believe that the old ways are often the best ways to do things
if you want them done right. These artisans could perhaps make a
better living if they sold mass-produced crafts, but they choose
not to. They work to create one-of-a-kind utilitarian crafts. Excellence
and creativity are the driving forces in art like this, and to visit
these people is like taking a time machine back to an era when quality
and beauty reigned. Here is the story of five artisans of the Old
West. Sergot's store is one of the few places in the Southwest where you can purchase a Panama straw hat and have it shaped to fit your head (and personality). Panama hats (which actually come from ecuador) are created from palmetto plants by highly skilled weavers. Think of it as fiber art. The weaving's grade runs from one to 20, based on the quality of the straw and the tightness of the weave. A number- 3 grade has the look of burlap, while a number- 14 grade feels like fine linen. The grade- 20 hats are very rare, because only a few living weavers can still produce such an intricate and delicate quality. Sergot offers a variety of styles and grades of hats to choose from. Do you fancy yourself in a Sam Spade fedora or as Indiana Jones? Are you a fan of Tom Mix's 10-gallon hat or would something smaller be better? These are difficult choices if you're a hat novice, but here the selection of a hat can include a discussion of your personality (bold or shy), how you'll use the hat (for hiking or dress affairs), and the social attributes of various hatbands (the bigger, the more formal the hat becomes). This allows Sergot to match a person to the right hat. It's a bit like going on the Dating Game and taking home a winner. Once the right hat is chosen, Sergot shapes it with an antique hat steamer to improve its fit or modify its style and then adds a hatband of your choice. All this takes time to do right, so hats are usually mailed to the buyer. If you prefer a felt hat, Optimo Hats can help you. In the back of the store sit a series of wooden hat forms (known as "block heads") used in the elaborate sizing and shaping process. The hat is placed over the form, steamed, and left to dry. Then the brim is placed in another series of forms to be steamed, shaped, and dried. This time consuming process requires hours of attention and handwork. That's one of the reasons these are great hats-- headware that can be passed down to another generation and has a distinctive style and beauty all its own. But don't take my word for it. Ask customers like Tom Selleck and Faye Dunaway.
Panamas with Panache As you walk up the narrow main street of Bisbee, Arizona, you might feel that time has not passed through here since the 1950's, when the Copper Queen Mine was in full swing. On the corner, nestled among trendy shops and art galleries, is Optimo Custom Hat Works. The display window in this pie-shaped building gives only a hint of the beautiful array of Panama hats that await inside. We are met by the owner- Bisbee's most renown artisan, S. Grant Sergot, who gives us an introductory tour of his shop and working studio. Throughout the store, a variety of hats stand like sculptures of straw on display. He ushers us toward the back of this renovated Victorian building, where his workshop is located. The rustic brick and the glow of his work lamps give warmth and character to the room. "I want my friends and customers to feel comfortable and relaxed when they come to the shop," he states, as we sit at his work bench and start our interview. A native of Michigan, S. Grant Sergot decided in his early twenties to go to Oaxaca, Mexico, where his mother lived and worked as a sculptor. "On my way south, I stopped at the Grand Canyon. Its refreshing blue skies and clean air was a big change from the winters in Ann Arbor. It was at this time that I heard about Bisbee, a mining town which had slowly grounded to a halt, and where the price of real estate was good. I arrived in 1974, and was immediately sold on the idea of settling here," Grant recalls. After spending six years promoting local artists, he decided to take some time off and travel through Latin America. His adventures led him to Equador, where he discovered the beauty and versatility of Panama hats. Hand woven by the descendants of the pre-Hispanic Inca culture, these straw hats are woven from carefully selected "Paja Toquilla." This palmetto plant, native to Ecuador, offered Grant a new form of sculpting. "The hats are a form of fiber art... the fine weaves, the molding and shaping, which when finished, offers me a more gratifying and satisfying feeling than other forms of sculpting." Taking a moment to show us some of his recent creations, he is careful to point out the different types of weaves. "The hats are graded from one to twenty in ascending order. Fino hats begin at ten and a fino fino hat qualifies at twenty," he explains. "The fineness of the hat is determined by the quality of the straw used and the tightness of the weave." Holding up two hats to a light he demonstrates the weave pattern on grade 17 which he likens to silk and the larger pattern on grade 10 which he compares to fine cotton. Self taught in the art of forming the hats, he returned to Bisbee and opened Optimo Custom Hat Works, where he has been custom-fitting "Panamas" for about five years. When asked how he determines the correct hat for a certain person, he compares it to a form of over-the-counter theater. "You are dealing with people's egos, especially someone who doesn't feel comfortable wearing a hat. The hat has to match the personality of the wearer and how it will be used. It's important to match the shape of the hat to the body form and body language." This is an art Mr. Sergot has mastered. His hat styles for men and women vary from fedoras to the Tom and Tami Mix cowboy hats. The prices range from $20 for an unblocked hat to $3,000 for a grade 17. This compares favorably to Sante Fe, where high grade hats sell for as high as $9,000 and in San Francisco, the same grade sells for $15,000. Some of his famous shoppers include Faye Dunaway, who bought three, and Tom Selleck, who bought one for himself and one for his wife. Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Dean Anderson (from MacGyver) and John Deal (from Miami Vice) are also proud owners of an Optimo hat. He caters to a variety of people from stylish golfers, who use them to shield themselves from the Arizona sun, to people just wishing to make a fashion statement. "For me, the payoff is seeing customers' self-perception transformed when the walk out the door wearing their Panama hats," said Sergot. With orders for his custom "Panamas" increasing beyond his capability, Grant had to train two additional people in the art of hat sculpting. The average wait for a custom hat is about 6 to 8 weeks, not bad when you consider you are not just getting a hat, but a piece of art, molded and shaped to meet your style and personality!
A Panama is more than a mere hat A Panama hat is no ordinary straw hat. Given the proper shaping, its dents or grooves, angles and sweeping, wide brim -- with or without curl -- is more a reflection of a wearer's personality than a whimsical fashion statement. That's what S. Grant Sergot (pronounced Sir-go) has in mind when he fits a Panama hat to the person buying it. Fitting a hat includes taking the raw, unblocked hat and molding it to a specific shape with a certain color trim added. Or, if it's "you," a trim embellished with a feather or silk flower. "I work off classic lines," said Sergot, owner of Optimo Custom Hat Works at 47 Main St. in Old Bisbee. "The hat has to match the personality of the wearer and its use. It's important to match the shape of the hat to the body form." Sergot has men's and women's variations of the fedora: the Indiana Jones, itself a modified fedora; the Tom Mix cowboy hat; and an original ladies' version called a Tami Mix. He also can shape a modified version of a fedora he accentuates with a flamboyant curve along the brim that was inspired by the Saturday morning cartoon character Darkwing Duck. "When you put on a Panama, there's a confidence instilled because of it's fineness," Grant said. That fineness is determined by the quality of the straw used and the tightness of the weave. The weave is graded from one to 20. Sergot likened the texture of a grade 2 hat to burlap, a grade 10 to fine cotton, a grade 14 to linen, a grade 17 to silk and a grade 20 to the smoothness and texture of paper. The prices of the hats increase with each rise in grade. Sergot said the Panama hats he sells range from $20 for an unblocked hat to $3,000 for a grade 17. He said the higher quality hats can sell for as high as $9,000 in Sante Fe, N.M., and $15,000 in San Francisco. Contrary to what the name implies, Panama hats are not made in Panama, but Ecuador. According to "The Panama Hat Trail," a book by Tom Miller, the Isthmus of Panama was the major trade corridor for South American goods, including Ecuadorian straw hats, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Miller, who lives part-time in Bisbee, shows in his book that gold seekers on their way to California from the East Coast bought the straw hats in the mid-1800s. Workers building the Panama Canal 50 years later wore the hats to shield against the tropical sun. The hats were named for the country where they could be bought, not where they were made, according to Miller. Miller said Friday that toquilla straw that grows in the hilly areas off the coast of Ecuador is used to weave the hats. Mestizo women of Latin and Indian origin typically weave the lower quality hats, while the higher quality ones are woven by men in small towns near Quito and in Montecristi, he said. In his book, Miller described the hats woven in Montecristi as "silken treasures, sleek and supple, each one an admirable example of delicate handicraft." But Miller said these higher quality hats are in danger of not being made, because weavers can make more money in other ways. Depending on the type of toquilla straw and weave, a hat can take from two to three days or two to three months to weave, Miller said. Weavers get from 60 cents to $50 or $60 for a hat that takes several months to make. "By this time, it's no longer a hat but a work of art," Miller said of the finer quality Panamas, for which weavers get paid more money. Miller said middlemen pay the weavers for the hats. Each time the hats move through the process on their way to a retail outlet in another country, such as the United States, the price about doubles, he said. A middleman may pay a weaver 65 cents for a hat that is sold for $35 in the United States, he said. In a twist of irony between a Third World country and more developed countries -- where Panama hats are bought to add a dash of class to one's appearance -- Miller said Ecuadorians, too, wear hats made of toquilla straw. But the Ecuadorians who wear these hats, typically shellacked for more durable wear, are identified as being on the low end of the social structure. "Just above the bottom," he said. Sergot acknowledges the Ecuadorian weavers on the inside of his hats. The bands read, "Original Panamas from Ecuador." He said the weavers should be considered art treasures in Ecuador, and that he would like to somehow effect a change in how the weavers are paid to ensure weaving of the higher quality hats doesn't die out. Like a sculptor, Sergot finds a challenge and creative outlet in taking an unblocked hat and giving it a form to match the wearer. "Each weaver has their own capabilities," said Sergot, who shapes the hats at this workshop on a ranch outside of Bisbee. "I never get bored, because they're all woven by different people. Each hat has different characteristics and limitations of what can be done to it." Allison Hardesty works with Sergot and is learning the craft of shaping the hats. "It's his first love. He needs to do it exclusively," Hardesty said of Sergot. Sergot's love of Panama hats began when he bought a high quality hat at an estate sale in the early 1970s. Before he found that one, he had been steaming felt hats over a kettle and shaping them in a mule barn near the Grand Canyon for dude wranglers. "For grins and beer," Sergot said. But the Panama hat he acquired intrigued him. Not knowing how to shape it, he tried different techniques using a carved melon to simulate the shape of a human head and a child's potty-training seat to curl the brim with. "There's no guide book," Sergot said. "I figured out how to form it, but it was a mess." But today, the shapes of Sergot's hats are as much an art form as the woven hats themselves. "So many people have asked me to start signing them, so I started signing them," he said. For Sergot, the payoff is seeing customers' self-perceptions transformed when they walk out the door wearing their Panama hats. Sergot recalled a stoop-shouldered customer who wanted to buy a Panama hat with a wide brim that turned down in the front, so he could hide under it. Sergot said he did turn down the brim in the front, but just past the man's peripheral vision. The rest of the brim was left flat and straight, denoting strength and confidence with wing-tip pencil curls to give it panache and flair, he said. "He walked out a whole different person. I don't think he realized he was strutting," Sergot said. "People's self-perception can change with a properly styled hat. Some people will say, 'I don't look good in a hat.' I say, 'Let me work with you.' A properly fitted and styled hat can instill confidence and give one a sense of elan and panache."
Looking for a Fine Panama Hat Store? Find it
in a Most Unexpected Place -- Bisbee Walking up the eerily quiet hill from Brewery Gulch in Bisbee, I took it slowly. The owners at the High Desert Inn had predicted a stroll through the business district would be nostalgic, a trip back to the 1960s. They missed by a full decade. This was more like the '50s. Nobody I encountered looked like Abbie Hoffman or Jerry Rubin. But I spotted dead ringers for Beat Generation heroes writer Jack Kerouac and poet Allen Ginsberg. Halfway up the hill, I stared into the window of the Optimo Custom Panama Hatworks and spotted a man wearing a creamy-white Panama hat. He bustled back and forth behind a 12-foot-long glass case with a dark wooden frame. Stacked neatly inside the case lay dozens of Panama hats. The only man I have ever known with the brass to wear a Panama hat under roof was Tennessee Williams, and he died back in 1983. That was before we all realized that A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie had been enough to earn him enduring fame in the American theater. The man behind the counter stood approximately the same height as Tennessee. He also wore the same style beard that Tennessee sometimes adopted. So I moved inside to get a better look and reassure myself I was not seeing an apparition. The man grinned delightedly as I approached. "I'm Grant Sergot," he said, extending a right hand. "Welcome to the finest Panama hat store in the West." He reached below the counter to pull out a hat and held it in both hands with great care. "The material in this particular hat is so fine it has the consistency of silk," he said. "The workmanship is exquiste, so intricate it took 9 months to weave down in Montecristi, Ecuador. I'd sell it to you for $4,500. If you go to New York or San Francisco to find its equal, you'll see I'm offering an incredible bargain." Sergot extended the hat for me to try on. I held my hands up defensively. I didn't dare risk a move that could bring me close to financial disaster. Sensing my distress, Sergot assured me that he had many hats in the store priced at under a hundred dollars. He stood there fondling the creases on each side of the crown of what had to be the jewel of his collection. "Who does it remind you of?" Sergot asked. "Humphrey Bogart? Gary Cooper? OrsonWelles? Harry Truman? Winston Churchill? Yes," he continued, "I'm talking of days gone by. A gentleman absolutely would not allow himself to be seen strolling along the boulevard with his head uncovered. "Recently, Tom Selleck, the actor, came into my store. He and Faye Dunaway were making a film in the area for television. Selleck bought two Panama hats, one of them had the high crown with side indents that I call 'The Tom Mix.' The next day, Miss Dunaway came in to buy one, too. Need I tell you how great she looked in a Panama hat?" Sergot remained indefatigably enthusiastic about his Panama hat collection. "After I shape a hat to fit your personality," he said, "you'll walk out of here with your head held high and your shoulders squared. You'll have an unmistakable sense of elan and panache. I've seen it happen hundreds of times to people who buy my hats." Sergot arrived here as a footloose 20-year-old from Michigan journeying to see the whole country. That was nearly 30 years ago. He had become enamored with Panama Hats during a stopover in Santa Fe. "I spent a day looking through a fine Panama hat store there, and promised myself that when I settled down someplace I would have the finest Panama hat store in the world. When I reached Bisbee, it took me about 5 minutes to realize I'd found a new home. Bisbee had everything I wanted out of life," he said. "It had colorful inhabitants. The place is filled with writers, artists and free spirits. The weather is great, too." Sergot walked me to the front door. He raised his Panama hat in salute. "Sure, you can consider this as a hat from the '30s," he admitted, "but they're coming back strong. Figure it this way: Wearing a Panama hat is like listening to Mozart, after realizing you've heard too much Merle Haggard." |
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