JJ Hat Center of Aida Tomaz O’toole is a Portuguese hat store on 5th Avenue with celebrity clients
Aida Tomaz O’Toole is used to having celebrities walk-in through her front door. The owner of one of the few remaining hat stores in Manhattan, located right on Fifth Avenue and shadowed by the iconic Empire State building, treats celebrities without reverence. “They don’t like special treatment” explains the Portuguese immigrant from Sarraquinhos, a Portuguese parish in the municipality of Montealegre, who has lived in the United States since she was two years-old. “And the more famous they are, the less attention they want”.
The owner never knows who she will assist at 310 Fifth Avenue, the address of her ‘JJ Hat Center’ hat shop in the heart of New York City. “Leonardo DiCaprio often comes to purchase hats” reveals O’Toole, referring to the popular North American actor from the mega-hit ‘Titanic’. “Sometimes the hats are for them, other times they come with friends. They sit in this chair and they let their friends choose what they want. Then in the end, they pay for everything. They are all very generous”.
Another client, who is also an actor, is Robert De Niro who she says is “very friendly”. Steven Spielberg, director of films such as ‘E.T’, “Comes here often and makes purchases like any other New Yorker”. Another famous client, actress Sarah Jessica Parker, “comes here a lot but to buy hats for her husband, actor Matthew Broderick”.
In addition to entertainment figures, ‘JJ Hat Center’ also provides hats to sport legends. “Cam Newton, for example, from the ‘New England Patriots’ orders many hats from us” says Aida Tomaz O’Toole. “It’s like this: If you see a celebrity wearing a beret or a hat, there’s a high probability that they bought them at my store. We often send several options to their ‘stylists’, they try it and what they don’t like, they return. That way they don’t even need to come here”.
The hat store opened in 1911 and has stood the test of time, even when the habit of wearing hats disappeared from the routine of New Yorkers. The store passed through three generations of the same family until 1987, when the Portuguese-descendant decided to buy it. Today, it remains one of the few dedicated hat shops in Manhattan, if not the only one of the well-known brand ‘Stetson’, now fabricated in Texas. But it was fate that placed Aida on Fifth Avenue.
Aida’s parents, Ana Martins and Manuel Tomaz, left Trás-os-Montes for the United States, bringing along their young children while in search of a new life. “Above all, they wanted to come so we could have a formal education. They were people who worked in the fields and only went to school until the 3rd and 4th grade”.
The Tomaz’s settled in New Rochelle, Westchester “where an uncle of ours lived who had sent us a letter of invitation”. Aida attended an elite private all-girl’s school, Ursuline School, and then she went to Fordham University, where she earned a degree in Art history. Aida then became a mother and “two children in the interval of eighteen months forced me to work only on a part-time basis”.
While her husband secured a job at ‘Stetson’ in Missouri, the O’Toole’s moved out of state and Aida went to work “in a small store that they had at the factory”. On their return to New York, her husband found a job at the ‘JJ Hat Center’ and little by little, Aida also got involved in the store. “I started working a few days and, when I noticed it, I was already managing it – until we bought the store”.
The store has more than twenty different brands of hat manufacturers, “mostly from Europe, and our stock varies from berets to all kinds of other hats. Only here, they should be in the order of thousands of samples – they all fit together. With many more to come”.
Aida says she sends orders all over the world, “except to regions where UPS and the US Postal Service don’t reach”.
Furthermore, the store also customizes hats to the customer’s tastes (at prices starting at $350) and cleans them for exhibits. Prices can range from $125 to more than $700 each. Even though Aida recognizes that “technically these hats are for male consumers”, she also classifies them as unisex props.
The ‘JJ Hat Center’ was closed from March to July due to the new coronavirus, with only its online component active. “I think things will only return to normal here in New York when the Broadway theaters reopen,” says Aida Tomaz O’Toole. “I have noticed small signs of recovery, such as, the entrance lines for the Empire State Building and I look forward to the Christmas season. We’ll see but the volume of business has not returned to what it was”.
Aida acknowledges having a distant relationship with Portugal, although she never stopped speaking Portuguese. “At home, I only spoke Portuguese with my father,” she says. “My mother wanted to learn English. We went to Portugal when I was 7 and 8 years old. They wanted us to meet the only grandmother we had left. Unfortunately, it was the last time I was there. Curiously, one of my children went there this year and loved it.” They are in fact in the process of obtaining Portuguese citizenship.
Aida reveals that she is increasingly more curious about the country in which she was born. “I believe I still have family there in Sarraquinhos, on my father’s side, and some uncles in Maia near Porto”. She pauses and adds: “I really have to go back there”.
