OWNER SHARON HAGERTY

Eclipse Hat Shop has been a part of the Pike Place Market since 1949, originally established by master hatter Herman Helmun. Sharon Hagerty was an apprentice under Mr. Helmun for three years. She took over ownership of Eclipse Hat Shop in 1996.

Sharon has a BA in Art History from SUNY Purchase. She has a certificate in millinery from FIT in New York City. Since 1981, she has made one of a kind millinery. Her hats have been in British Vogue Magazine and films such as James and the Giant Peach, Jack, and Chaplin.

Sharon was a Millinery instructor at Academy of Art College in San Francisco and a guest artist and instructor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Sharon specializes in the restoration, cleaning, and blocking of men’s hats and one of a kind fur felt hats. Sharon has blocked and hand finished hats for 35 years.

FOUNDER HERMAN HELMUN

Herman Helmun (1917-1998) grew up on Banks Island in Puget Sound. He was crippled with polio as a child in 1928 and, unable to find other work, turned to hats.

Mr. Helmun began hatmaking in the height of the Great Depression in 1937 under FDR’s New Deal program, training under his mentor, Bert James. Mr. James, the owner of Eclipse Shoe Repair Shop (namesake of Eclipse Hat Shop) taught Mr. Helmun how to clean, block, and renovate hats.

Mr. Helmun opened Eclipse Hat Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market in 1949. A master hatter and renovator, the only hat blocker in town, he was known for taking three months to a year to renovate a hat. He explained “People call me up and ask me how quick I can do a job. I tell them three months. Often as not, they get huffy at that and say ‘Forget it, I’ll go somewhere else’. Where they gonna go?”

Many young aspiring hatmakers approached him asking to be his apprentice, but he turned them all down until Sharon Hagerty came along.