Longtime hatter reopens shop after overcoming illness

If making hats by hand is a dying trade, nobody told David Johnson.

The 50-year Paradise resident and owner of D Bar J Hat Company, 5960 Topaz St. , said he is one of maybe a few dozen hatters still operating in the country.

"I'm a dying breed," Johnson said. "There's less than 50 (hatters) left, and only about three or four are any good, including me."

The work space in the back of the new D Bar J store front is full of early 20th-century hat-making equipment, six archaic machines all with their own unique purpose: steaming, stretching or sanding.

"When I fire everything up, it looks like a Rube Goldberg mess," Johnson said.

But there's a method to the madness, he added.

Therein lies the hatter's success. With companies such as Stetson mass-producing hats at a staggering pace, consumers, Johnson said, appreciate hand-made products tailored to, say, the shape of their head.

"I take pride in my product," he said of his process. "I'm sculpting clay, but it's not clay. It's fur."

It is a festive environment in the new confines; A dance studio is in the upstairs loft, and a variety of paper lamps hang from the ceiling. The shop is also soon to receive a custom, top hat-shaped fish tank from Acrylic Tank Manufacturing, of reality television fame.

"This place'll look like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory after we're done with it," Johnson said.

Johnson started his company in 1988. He took part in Western dance competitions as a young man, and after constantly having to repair his hats, he figured he could turn his ability into a career.

By 2005, Johnson's health took a turn for the worse. He closed his original store on Spring Mountain Road but continued to make and repair hats, only when his health allowed, at a work space on a chicken farm.

Having recovered from his illness, aplastic anemia, it was an old friend and dance partner, Janet Diniz, and her husband, Raphael Diniz, who partnered with the hatter to move the business to its new location.

"We needed a better space," Janet Diniz said of the shop in the northwest portion of the valley. "I couldn't stand those chickens."

Diniz and her husband worked for UPS . Raphael Diniz still flies planes for the company but said that the hat business was a natural fit.

"The three of us work well together," Raphael Diniz said. "We're like three sides of a triangle with no overlap."

Johnson makes the hats, Janet Diniz runs the day-to-day operations and helps with the stitching and Raphael Diniz takes care of the marketing.

He said his sales pitch is as simple as handing someone a D Bar J hat.

"I hand them my card and tell them, 'When you're ready for a quality hat, give me a call,' " Raphael Diniz said.

Johnson estimates he has made about 50,000 hats over his career. His hats were on display in the Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Museum until it closed and in the Smithsonian. D Bar J hats have been worn by the likes of Charlie Daniels and Bill Clinton. His company even outfitted the greeters at the Salt Lake City Olympics.

The 54-year-old Johnson said he is not planning to retire anytime soon. He is on a mission to put a quality hat on every head.

"The quality of hats these days is so poor . We're stuck with a generation of bad hats," he said. "Some of these hat makers are really good for my business."

Contact Paradise/Downtown View reporter Nolan Lister at nlister@viewnews.com or 702-383-0492.