THEY INVENTED A NEW HAT (Nov, 1959)
THEY INVENTED A NEW HAT
TWO University of Southern California lads named Bob Tierney and Tom Morey started out to create a super surfboard of glass fiber and honeycomb paper—a heavier version of the kind used to make those Christmas bells. The surfboard broke in two, but they still had a lot of the honeycomb to play with. One day a friend took a disc of it, pulled it down over his head. Pouf! An amusing hat. The paper was a free sample from the manufacturer; it was used in aircraft construction because of its lightness and weight. A disc of the stuff could be pulled and shaped as the wearer desired it; it could be functional, to keep off the sun, or chic—see the pictures.
One of their first customers was Darrylin Zanuck, the movie man’s daughter, who runs a women’s wear shop in Santa Monica. She ordered two dozen, wore one herself, showed them around the 20th Century-Fox Studios. Dody Heath (shown in photos), Joan Collins and Red Skelton (a hat collector) all bought Fan-toppers, as the hats were called. Joan Collins, was pink, to match her sports car. Bob Hope wore one while golfing. Fan-toppers became a fad, and Bob and Tom were soon operating a factory with a crew of seven workers, manufacturing a patented product. With this staff and some simple tools they get out 50,000 lightweight lids a month, each costing 50 cents to make. Retail price is about $2.00.
Neither Bob nor Tom expects to be making Fantoppers forever. But they have lots of ideas—many exciting toys, for instance—and they do expect to stay in manufacturing. They even have a notion of making a super surfboard someday.
DARN! If only JFK had not shown up at his inauguration hatless 14 months later these almost certainly would have caught on!
And yet, somehow, we don’t see a hats like that in these days. Allthought I have some christmas tree decorations which were made that way.
It looks like the inside of my car’s air filter.
Fascinating to have followed-up on the two inventors and learned that Tom Morey (now known as ‘Y’ – he’s always been more Y than more) went on to invent various other surf-related items including the Boogie Board.
Still looks better to me than Crocs and so versatile!
If these were marketed again their tag line could be,
“Fantoppers more versatile than a crocodile”
is there a pattern for this hat?