This Old Moriarty Hat
Who owns a hat for 50 years? Well, if it’s a Moriarty hat, perhaps you understand why.
Getting ready to shovel the driveway one cold morning last winter, I reached to the top shelf of the hall closet for a hat. My fingers felt the double-thick headband of my old Moriarty hat tucked up out of sight. I pulled it over my ears and went a-shoveling. Working the shovel in knee-deep in snow, a thought occurred to me. Wait a minute. I bought that hat from Mrs. Moriarty’s shop on the Stowe Mountain Road in 1964. That made it fifty years old. My hat was fifty. It has been with me in trunks, suitcases, boxes and dresser drawers in moves from New York to California to Japan back to California and then to Massachusetts. Been with me at Mammoth Mountain, cross-country in Appleton Farms, MA, going to class in Syracuse, sailing the Gulf of Maine, walking to work from North Station in downtown Boston. Fifty years is a long time to own a hat. Of course, I had other hats, but my Moriarty kept popping into my hand from time to time from the top shelf. How did this happen?
Back in the 60s and 70s, Moriarty hats were iconic. The Preppy Handbook lampooned them as an essential part of the spoiled college kid outfit. Almost everyone I skied with at Song Mountain, Tully, NY, had one. The three points on the top were like a rooster’s cockscomb, distinctive and bold. You wore your hat down tight over your ears with your goggles wrapped around your head. No helmets in those days. It was a “look” that even the most tentative skiers could exhibit.
Mrs. Moriarty founded a cottage industry around weaving those hats. Soon outpaced by the volume of orders, Mrs. M. enlisted an army of fifty weavers in Stowe village, producing as many as 40,000 in 1965. At its height, the Moriarty hat was as ubiquitous a symbol of skiing as Head skis and Marker turntable bindings. An ad in SKI was bold enough to say, “The people of Vermont make great maple syrup, great cheddar cheese and the best ski hats in the world.” As I said, icon status.
You can buy a vintage Moriarty hat on eBay or from the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum that somehow has a stock of left over inventory from the later days of the company. The Moriarty family got out of the business in the 80s.
Mrs. Moriarty was told by skiers that “they skied better” with her hat on.
Credit: SKI January, 1965
Don’t ask why I never sent my hat off to the Salvation Army. Despite the odd moth hole, it has simply always been part of my kit along with a handful of books, a banjo, a lighter from my Navy destroyer, and other small remainders of the past. Things that travel through life with you have value. When you pick them up again after many years, memories start to emerge in layers. Even after many years. Even a ski hat. That’s why I love my Moriarty hat.
Do you still have one?
For more information, check out Retro-Skiing.com as well as Ivy-Style.com.
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i bought one also. in fact, i was with the author and we bought them together. he looked better in his, so that is why he kept it.
I retired to VT from Essex and couldn’t help but to notice that you xc skied at Appleton farm. I used to, and in a good snow winter it was close, cheap and got me psyched for skiing up here. I retired here, and found my way to the museum as a part-time archivist and when I catalog the old stuff it is a trip down memory lane. Happy skiing! Laurence
Hi Larry: We love nostalgia. Let us know if you have any ideas for articles.
That’s the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum in Stowe!
I enjoyed reading this.
Thanks for the plug.
C.Sharp from Ivy Style
Anyone have a pattern for the Moriarty Hat?
You can actually still buy new old stock from http://www.thecountrycupboards.com in Ligonier Pa. The last owner still drops off stock when she visits town. Lots of the iconic deer loving eachother design.
Great story Mike. Loved reading this. I still have my Baxter Green one from back in the day. Dated but a classic. Thanks for the memory.
After 56 years of marriage involving 2 wives…6 moves (last to Utah!)…two kids…and 89 years, I’ve lost track of mine! But I sure do remember it…especially on those 20 below days on Mansfield when we skied no matter what! If there’s a Heaven, Mrs. Moriarity is certainly in it but I’m not so sure about Marvin.
I still have mine. I don’t wear it as much now, as I have switched to a helmet.
I still hava colloection of them. They are great hats and have stood the test of time. Go retro.
Probably bought mine in 1964 also at Ms. Moriartys shop on the Mt Rd. It’s indestructible! Though somewhat infamous for the wild itchies it causes resulting in protracted scalp scratching on removal. I will never part with mine, though will never again where it. Like my late fathers Tyrolean hat covered with pins from ski areas across North America and Europe, it’s a find trip down memory lane.
I still have three of Mrs. Moriarty hats. My four children all had
Moriarty Hats. Of course B4 Helmets. I played Tennis with Marvin
Moriarty a few years ago in Stowe and he is now in Vero Beach
Fl. and doing fine. I miss him. Nice guy.
I still have mine, it’s red with my initials in blue, FDS, everyone made fun of it but I was one of a few that had a Moriarty ski hat and I will never part with it⛷
I not only have my hat but my Morarrty sweater which I still wear when I ski.
They don’t make them like that anymore.
I still have my yellow Moriarity hat from my days living in Killington, Vermont back in the ’70s. It is one of my warmest hats and I wear it all the time.
I have owned numerous M hats with the tassles which were customed designed to match all my ski Jackets.
currently I have two that I use daily Mon-Fri. blue one green one
I never ski on holidays and week ends. J
I’m still skiing every day in my Moriarity hat. Black, with Grateful Dead Dancing Bears dancing over multicolored stripes on the headband. It’s pretty sharp. It has one small moth hole between a couple of the Dancing Bears. My goggle strap covers it.
Why would I wear a helmet when I have a ski hat made by the finest ski hat maker in the history of the planet? Mrs. Moriarity has been watching out for me for decades.
The link below is a photo of me in my Moriarity. The warmest, most comfortable, & coolest ski hat ever.
https://www.thunderrabbitgrfx.com/UTAH-LIFE/SKIING/UTAH-SKI-DAYS/i-nsvcDzr/A
Great story and being part of the company it’s wonderful to hear all of the continuing use of our hat. Still have my original in a drawer ready to go in case it cools off here in Florida.
You may not remember me but I graduated from SHS in 1964. Richie Reynolds and I went to your mother’s shop while we in high school and each ordered a hat and I ordered a zippered sweater. I remember you had a motorcycle shop out back. I was at our last major alumni banquet at the Trapps as well as you. Would have liked to say hi but were pressed for time, maybe next time? Who is this you say?
Larry Reed
Williston, Vt
802-879-7327
I was in cousin Sam Kaiser’s class
I ordered these for an outdoor education program in the 90’s and still have a few – the best – iconic – warm….classy and a throwback to my “younger” days on the mountain before helmets!
I was a kid during the height of the popularity of Moriarty hats. My parents were huge skiers, and so were we. But they never forgot growing up in the Depression, so we knitted our own Moriarty-style hats. Everyone had them back in the day!
My husband has one that says, “Denver ‘76”. Denver made a bid for the Olympics.
My family rented a big two story house from the Moriartys in the mid-sixties. It was situated across the parking lot from the old knitting shop. (Today, there’s a shop in that house that sells pastries and coffee, it’s been greatly remodeled but still stands.) And I still have my burgundy and white moriarty hat that Mrs. Moriarty gave me when I was eleven! Those were wonderful days. Every kid in school got a free ski pass each winter and every Friday the school bus would take us all to the slopes after lunch for PE. Fun times!