The following is via COL:
Will the boycott travel across the Atlantic?
A group of Chabad bochurim in New York are trying to garner support to join a boycott that originated in Israel over the rising prices of fedora hats.
Organizers are saying that prices of the Italian made Borsalino hats have risen by $50 in the last 5 years, bringing the price of the typical Yeshiva student’s hat in Israel to $274.
Petitions going around in Yeshivas in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak are threatening to stop purchasing hats if the prices don’t drop. According to Makor Rishon newspaper, some 10,000 people signed.
“Borsalino is telling us that it’s a luxury item and the price doesn’t have to be cheap, but they know the truth – that everyone still buys it, not only a select few,” one organizer said.
“It’s a common product and there is no reason the price should be so high,” the person added. “A manufacturer raises prices to increase profits on a product that isn’t selling well, but if the masses are buying this excuse doesn’t exist.”
Regular consumers of the hats made of felt from Belgian rabbit are Lubavitcher chassidim, and students of Litvish and Sephardic Yeshivos. Other chassidic groups wear hats with beaver finish or a fur shtreimel.
Recently, bochurim in a Chabad Yeshiva in New York have asked their ‘hanhala’ administration if they would be allowed to join the boycott and start wearing a flat cap, also called a casket hat.
(Source: COL)
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24 Responses
If frum Jews knew the origin of the fedora they would be burning them, not wearing them. It became popular a century ago because of the notorious apostate hedonist Sarah Bernhardt. (Yes, it was a woman’s hat style.)
Maskim, the prices are ridiculous.
However, there are other brands but none truly come close.
Though we are 80% of their business so we should be able to stop this g’naivah!!
I’ve been wearing fedoras for some 35 years, and I’ve never once bought a Boralino. They have always been too expensive, and one can “make do” with another brand of fedora that is cheaper.
i think a shtreimel in the long run is more economical.
it’s a yidish malbish.
A bunch of dorks. Use a different brand. This business about changing to “casket hats” indicates an ulterior motive by these kids. Otherwise they could use the same type of black hats as Borsalino makes using another off-brand for less money.
Sign me up its about time but why does it have to be a whole different kind of hat and not just a different company?
YES!!!!
What a great idea!
Great Opportunity!
Open up a factory with Heimishe Yinge Leit who need Parnossoh, and compete against them.
Yes, but Boycotting is much easier, who wants to go to work?
what about $3,000 shaitels??????????
ani tapuach;
you’re right!I buy synthetic hair shaitels from Beauty Trends or other catalogs for $70 and some goyim I work with never realized I was wearing a shaitel
1. Since they are imported from the EU, the price should be falling in dollars since the dollar is currently strong, the euro is weak, and the shekel is in between.
2. Rejecting a product because of price, when there is competition, is hardly a “boycott”, it is how capitalism works. The people who claim this is a boycott must thing that the market for hats is controlled by a government agency that dictates you must buy their product. Under a free market system, people can choose a less expensive product. They should teach the law of supply and demand in yeshivos – it seems many of them think the socialists won the cold war.
4. Borsalino makes many fine hats (not just fedoras, I prefer homburgs myself), but they have lots of competition. Given the large market for hats in Israel, its surprising some Israelis don’t start making hats and selling them.
Ditto I am in.
We should start this at bmg
About time! Prices are insane already.
It happens to be that brand is the best. You pay for quality. Stetson or whatever just doesn’t come close.
The quality of Borsalino isn’t that much better than lesser brands. And there are some brands of equal quality, such as what Ferster makes.
The looks are the same across the brands, even the lesser quality brands.
And even if the lesser quality brands last you half as long as a Borsalino, if you’re paying a quarter of the price you are saving half the costs of a borsalino. (And there’s less chance the hat will be lost or ruined since you own it for a smaller time. And if it is lost or ruined, it is less costly to replace.)
Wait. The smashed hats worn by chabadniks are borsalinos? why would they buy an expensive borsalino and bend and twist it to suit their “style”?
That is such a dumb idea. If you cant afford higher line stuff so don’t buy it! What dont you guys start banning any company who hikes up the price because of their name-Gucci Ferragamo, Prada…What planet do you live in that you think every object you buy, you are paying for the cost it took to make it.you guys are probably mourning the fall of communism you’d get along great with Stalin
Cant stop laughing at this immature stupidity. Do something worthwhile and boycott the high price of matzos which is NOTHING but water and flour.
We should go back to the white or grey straw hats they wore in the european yeshivas!
Anyone have any clue which company manufactured them?
1) agreed that there are other hats that look the same on the outside which are much cheaper.
2) Borsilino’s get sat on once, or get a drop of rain on them, and they’re no longer good.
3) most people don’t wear their hats inside out.
my hat store owner said that borsalino hats last longer and in better shape because they are so expensive people tend to take care of them better
samklein30 says:
January 21, 2015 at 1:32 pm
“i think a shtreimel in the long run is more economical.
it’s a yidish malbish.”
Go check the origin of your “yidish malbish.” It was worn by Polish and Russian noblemen long before you guys. That means it’s goyish malbish.
I don’t want to sound snobbish here, but as a European I can tell you that anyone who thinks that $274 is a lot of money for a high-quality, long-lasting, hand-made European product is living in cloud-cuckoo land.
One of the issues here (not a chiddush, I know) is that America has long since stopped producing things for itself. We are therefore in the position of choosing between quality European imports with price tags to match, and the ubiquitous ‘made in China’ goods that are cheap and short-lived.
The latter being so common-place here in America, some of us have forgotten about the wisdom of investing in quality items that will serve us well for years. Our consumerist quest for a constant ‘quick fix’ has buoyed the Chinese economy up to where it stands today – ready to take us over.
Given the money we are all capable of wasting on things that don’t matter, surely it is right to invest properly in something so choshuv and central to our identity as a hat.
Companies like Borsalino are committed to making classic, relatively tznisudik clothes – as I woman I buy mainly classic European imports from old companies – and we should be supporting this trend, not hampering it.
Sara: You are not only snobbish but foolish too. The lesser quality goods indeed last shorter. But they cost significantly less. And it is far more economical to purchase the lower cost products — and replace them more often — than to purchase the high-priced, nay overpriced, goods that you’re paying more for the name than for the quality.
We should absolutely be ending the snobbish trend of overpaying for brand names.