Cool Hunting

Among felt molds, colorful ribbons and other bits of visual stimuli found at the Viennese workshop of Mühlbauer, the family-owned hat-makers that goes back three generations, I was particularly taken by the ad campaigns lining the halls.

Spanning the decades with smart depictions of stylish women wearing hats, the colors, compositions and aesthetics of the vintage ads are like a walk through a history of illustration.

The highly-stylized imagery represents a bygone era of graphic arts, one that, like Warhol's illustrations, border on fine art.

One look at their current collateral, Gregor Zivic's bizarre photo depicting a man squeezing black liquid from an udder onto a hat (above), is testament to a creative company that perseveres with a strong identity only rivaled by the quality of their goods. (See the many turbans, veils, beribboned headbands and other smart headgear in their current collection for examples.)