Cowboy hats aren’t just a Western tradition in Colorado, they’re a booming business

Chris Christmas, a fourth-generation Black cowboy with Native American roots, considers the cowboy hat to be an indispensable part of his heritage.

“I think I was born with a cowboy hat,” said the 57-year-old Denverite, whose family has resided in Colorado for 120 years. With dozens of hats in his collection today, “I buy them like sneakers,” he laughed.

Christmas is pressing against the longstanding stereotype of a white-washed American West by working with hat shaper Parker Orms on a line of headwear stylized on “the untold legacy” of Black cowboy culture.

“Because they had come from slavery, there wasn’t too much they had to represent their wealth except their horse, their hat and their scarf,” Christmas said in an interview. “Your identity was based on your hat.”

An American renaissance of the Wild West and its traditions is putting the iconic cowboy hat back in the spotlight. In recent years, business has boomed for Colorado’s hat shapers — several of whom had the family trade passed down to them — as they meet demand from city slickers and cattle hands alike for their custom headwear.

On a Monday afternoon in early December, 32-year-old Orms stood behind his work bench at the back of clothing store Haven at 257 Fillmore St. in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood. Since he moved into the space in October, hats of different styles and colors have hung from the walls, with twin neon signs of a cowboy and cowgirl glowing nearby.

First, Orms selected a hat — Rodeo King brand, light blue in color and felt made of a beaver/rabbit fur blend. Then, he bathed it in a cloud of steam. Within a half hour, he’d shaped the hat himself, forming a cattleman crease on its crown with his fingers.

The Wheat Ridge native is a third-generation hat shaper, following in the footsteps of his father, Glenn, and his late grandfather, Dewey, who plied the trade for over six decades.

“They taught me the art of hat shaping,” Orms said. “It’s a family thing.”

He never expected to learn hat shaping at 23 years old. Growing up, he predominantly focused on sports, and football brought him to the University of Colorado to play as a defensive back. Orms spent his last season in Milan, Italy, playing for the Rhinos Milano — the country’s professional league — where the “fashion capital” made its mark on him.

Once he returned to Colorado, he joined his father and grandfather on the rodeo circuit, and shaped hats for the first time at the National Western Stock Show.

Orms started his own business, Hats by Parker Thomas, about two years ago. For a custom hat, he charges between $250 to $450, with extra services like hat cleaning and reshaping for $50 and hat branding for $25.

“Western culture’s really in right now,” particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed more people outdoors, he said in an interview. “There’s people all over the country — even the world — that are wanting cowboy hats, and there isn’t anybody in their town that does what we do.”

His market continues to expand as he services more weddings and Western-themed events. Orms, who’s shaped hats in Paris Fashion Week and at Las Vegas’ National Finals Rodeo, enjoys watching his “modern, Western chic” creations travel across the globe via social media.

Orms dreams of one day fathering a son who will also shape hats and compete as an athlete. But until then, he and his own dad have plans of their own: teaming up to teach a new class, Hat Masters, where they show others “the art of hat shaping.”

Papa Orms and the Cow Lot

Unlike his son, Glenn Orms, 67, always knew he’d join the family business.

“Hats were the one thing that I knew I loved,” the Wheat Ridge resident said in an interview.

In his hometown of Wichita Falls, Texas, “we always had hats in our house,” Orms said. He can recall a photo of himself at 3 years old, cowboy hat on his head.

His father, Dewey, rode horses bareback as a rodeo cowboy, and befriended rodeo announcer Nat Fleming. In 1952, the late Fleming opened the Cow Lot, a Western retail store that provided cowboys with boots and hats quickly — a much-needed business in their Texas community because, at the time, it could take months for orders to process at other establishments.

After Dewey married, he made a career change, working at the Cow Lot to support his new family. Orms — the eldest son — “grew up in that store,” and worked there himself in high school.

He moved to Colorado in 1982, right after 1978 TV series “Dallas” and 1980 film “Urban Cowboy” spurred national interest in cowboy culture. Today, he’s seeing its revival, which he credits to ongoing TV series “Yellowstone” and the mainstream acceptance of country music.

When Orms started his own hat company in 2011, he asked Fleming if he could borrow the name — the Cow Lot — to “keep it alive.” And at his location at 10800 E. 46th Ave. in Denver, Orms still serves the needs of cowboys, just like he did in Texas.

But he’s seeing high demand outside of his traditional customers, with TikTok and other social media platforms raising his business profile. Orms even served a pair of girls who traveled straight to Colorado from Switzerland for his hats.

“Every manufacturer is out of product,” Orms said. “2019 to date has been unbelievable.”

At the Cow Lot, customers can buy a hat as inexpensive as $69 and as pricey as $1,950, “hand-shaped to your liking.”

But when it comes to estimating how many hats his hands have shaped, “there’s no way to tell,” Orms said. In the coming months, he predicts that he’ll sell thousands of hats at events like the National Finals Rodeo and the National Western Stock Show.

Although the industry will inevitably evolve — hats “may be 3D printed one of these days” — he’s always looking for other avenues to better compete. For example, he’s introducing new services like hat renovation: taking old hats once worn by clients’ grandparents — former rodeo queens and retired cowboys — and reviving them.

“When you put a cowboy hat on, you walk a little taller. You get a little swagger,” Orms said. “You feel different.”

“Oldest Stetson dealer west of the Mississippi”

On the three-hour drive from Denver to Steamboat Springs, travelers can spot handmade yellow signs posted throughout northwest Colorado that advertise F.M. Light & Sons. About 100 of those road signs were set up a century ago, and they’re still standing today, guiding drivers to the historic Western apparel store at 830 Lincoln Ave. in Steamboat.

Founded in 1905, “it’s still in the same location and still in the same family,” said co-owner Chris Dillenbeck, 41. His wife Lindsay — the great-great granddaughter of F.M. Light — counts as the fifth generation to run the business.

The establishment deals predominantly in cowboy hats and boots — a point enforced by the store’s distinct leather smell. According to local legend, “we’re the oldest Stetson dealer west of the Mississippi,” Dillenbeck said, referring to the famous Stetson cowboy hats. “No one’s argued that that’s not true yet.”