Her derbies are reminiscent of the hats worn by Madeleine in the famous children's books. On the women's hats, I use a lot of vintage velvet flowers and leaves, but on the children's I use simpler things. The straw derbies have fluted edges, little birds or butterflies and different trims. Many of her children's hats are custom-ordered to match a specific outfit. Most of her customers are very young, about three years old.
Parents have a harder time getting older children to wear fancy hats.
By the same token, she tells mothers with babies and toddlers to take advantage while they can. Cuzco's hats, which are distributed worldwide, are classic Panama straws from Ecuador which are then hand made and crafted at her wholesale facility in Arkansas. She sells the hats locally in her retail children's clothing shop and does her biggest business at Easter. I've tried to bring in some different types of colors, but pink, light blue and cream are always the classics. A recent entrant into the infant and toddler headwear market is Kiddy Kats by Valtex LLC, in Scottsboro, Ala., which has begun selling five colors of baseball caps and four colors of bucket hats.