Watching a young man raised in the Teche Area come into his own, with a hat shop on Church Alley, was exciting for many residents who know Colby Hebert. It was inspiring to see the Catholic High School graduate find his personal niche and begin to grow his handmade hat business in his hometown. Disappointment was audible when he made the move to New Orleans, a plan always on his agenda. After visiting with him on the set of the recent filming of “Christmas on the River,” his continued support for the community became quite evident.

“Now I have a hat on Allison Janney, Jason Aldean, comedian actor Jeremy Piven, guitarist Gary Clark Jr., a Saints veteran and Lauren Daigle, a contemporary Christian artist,” Hebert said. “It’s impressive how much she’s grown. My shop is now at 4516 Magazine, uptown New Orleans, riverside. It’s a great spot.”

“I’ve got Spanish moss hanging, cypress, cowhide rugs and whiskey barrels and on top of that the design of the website has cypress knees everywhere, and with the collection the whole thing became a way to work on Cajun preservation,” he said.

The shop name in New Iberia was Colby Hebert Chapeaux because most people knew the French word for hat, he said. But moving to New Orleans he changed it to Colby Hebert the Cajun Hatter.

“Since moving I’ve had all these epiphanies and started a collection I call Louisiana icons. They’re all these different designs like Cayenne, Atchafalaya, Dark Roux,” Hebert said. “Basically what I’ve been doing in New Orleans is bringing an awareness of Cajun culture to hundreds of tourists and thousands of locals. Those hats are part of my permanent collection and will always be. The rest are generally custom work.”

Moving from New Iberia to New Orleans, Hebert said many people were upset that he was moving out of the community.

“To be fair, I always intended on having the company in New Orleans, it was just an economic decision to start here,” Hebert said.

Three years later and living outside of New Iberia, he’s still wearing the first hat he ever made as a fabricant de chapeaux, the hat maker in French.

“I took what was in New Iberia, ‘I’m a Cajun hat maker,’ the Cajun hatter, and basically the entire brand is all about telling the story of the Cajun people,” Hebert said. “When you walk into the shop, the aesthetic is like walking into the swamp.”

“I’ve been able to bring the story of the Cajun people to New Orleans, what it means to be Cajun, the designs and the soul of it,” he said. “I have this conversation with tourists and locals who don’t even know, in New Orleans, what it means to be Cajun, what the Cajun story is.”

The excitement about the Cajun culture is just one of the motivators for Hebert in his new location. His ability to create unique hats is more marketable for the film community coming in and out of New Orleans.

“I made the hat that was on the monster for ‘Jeeper Creepers 3.’ I did the Creeper hat. They couldn’t use the hat from the first movie. For the second one the hat was a mess. But the third one, the director contacted me and said I really want to get the hat back. I got to make something happen when they couldn’t get their hands on the original hat. It was a fun project,” Hebert said.

His passion for making costume hats played a big part of forming his new career. As an actor working on sets prior to opening the hat shop, he created pieces for himself to wear as well as others, aging them, giving them a look to match a character. His reputation is growing.

Continuation of Common Theme

Hebert is expanding his promotion of the Cajun culture. Something that may not be well known is that he is a traiteur.

“I’ve been looking at how do I bring Cajun healers into the modern world, or to people who don’t remember or know how to find a traiteur,” Hebert said. “Basically I’m going around finding all these traiteurs and sharing their information through an online database. People can go and look up cities they are in so people can embrace more holistic healing. It’s a big thing now.”

Hebert is creating a website LouisianaHealers.org that is essentially a platform to preserve traiteurs and bring them to people who are still wanting to approach more natural healing.

“Honestly, I’m all about Cajun preservation. Everything I think is about being an ambassador for Cajun preservation in New Orleans. As a matter of fact, someone I met with doing a podcast on Cajuns in modern day, called me a Cajun “expat” — like back in the day when American expatriates like Hemingway lived in Paris,” Hebert said. “The poets, musicians and painters were all Americans but living elsewhere. She called us the Cajun x-pats because I work on the music, language and the food — which I call the trinity of Cajun preservation. But also traiteurs, telling what it means to be Cajun.”

Naturally, his shop is a retail outlet for selling his mother’s book, “Rebuilding the Cajun Way,” by Tina Hebert. Earlier this year he married another Catholic High School alumni living in New Orleans. With his wife’s family also in the Teche Area, Hebert will always return.

“I use that word Cajun to preserve the culture and uplift the culture. I’m fueled by it. I can do much more for New Iberia there, than if I had stayed here,” he said. “Laissez le bon temps rouler.”