New collection: Shop Ye

Jess Grinsel came to hat making the long way around. Naturally private and more observer than performer, she spent years building Alter Ego quietly, chapter by chapter, before she had the words for what it would become. She works from a small studio on the California coast in Ventura, where the light and pace of the ocean shape her days as much as her hands shape a hat. Jess believes that what we wear is identity, not decoration, and that a handmade hat asks something of the person who wears it. Off the clock, she's usually cooking dinner for her husband and three daughters, or sitting still at the beach or in her garden.