03-07-2011, 07:17 PM
FULLERTON – Where to get those hard-to-find supplies for feather hair extensions? The local fly-fishing store, of course.
Employees of Bob Marriott's Flyfishing Store in Fullerton have been bombarded with people seeking the scarce type of chicken plumage many women have been weaving, dyeing and placing in their hair as part of a hot trend.
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Steve Oualline of Bob Marriott's Flyfishing Store in Fullerton displays taxidermied roosters similar to the ones that have been providing the feathers the hottest new fashion trend – feathered hair extensions. The store has been inundated with women seeking the feathers.
"We get anywhere from five to a dozen phone calls each day from women asking for these feathers," said Steve Oualline, a salesman at the store for 15 years.
"We've had some people saying they've been doing it for two or three years. It's really creating a run on the feathers," Oualline said. "I had one lady who wanted to place a $10,000 order. We had to tell her, 'We'd love to do that, but we can't get them.' "
It was around October or November when more and more women began to call Marriott's looking for the feathers, saying they'd become expensive at hair salons.
Somehow the word got out that the store stocked these special feathers.
"We're the biggest fly-fishing store in California, if not the West Coast," Oualline said. "It's caught us by surprise as much as anyone else."
Mary Lee Wood, who owns Salon Incognito in San Clemente with her husband, Chris, said TV played heavily into the groundswell.
"The flavor of the month is feathers because of Steven Tyler on 'American Idol,' " she said. "He has them in his hair."
When her usual Internet suppliers' stock vanished, Wood also went to Marriott's.
"I spent $600 at Bob Marriott's," she said, to replenish her quill collection.
Customer after customer asks her for the feathers, which Wood sells at $15 for a cluster of four feathers.
"I just sold $100 worth to one girl," Wood said.
What makes these feathers so special?
They're not from an ordinary Foster Farms fryer.
The feathers are long, 12 to 14 inches, compared with a couple of inches for the typical clucker.
"They're bred specifically for that length. The fibers coming off the stem are the same length at one end of the feather as they are at the other," Oualline said.
Those same qualities make the feathers attractive to fly fishermen, who used them to craft flies mimicking insects that sit atop water.
"Not only do they give the impression of antennae and legs, they stabilize the fly on the water," Oualline said. "There's not an alternative. The quality of these feathers is essential if you want to have a quality fly."
The stock sold at Marriott's comes from Whiting Farms, a specialty ranch in Delta, Colo. Whiting Farms is the largest of a handful of fowl-raising operations that produce specialized feathers for fly tying.
Company founder Thomas Whiting has a degree in genetics and specializes in breeding roosters that produce plumage with "grizzly" – a special black-and-white feather pattern prized by fly tiers.
Recently, he took to one of the farm's enormous barns (Whiting Farms has 250 million square feet of chicken roosts) seeking refuge from the buzzing phones at his office.
"I had to get away from the aggressive salon owners," he said via cell phone, a cacophony of rooster calls filling the background. "I've been doing this for 22 years, but it's been almost exclusively for fishing flies. I've been trying to find other markets for the feathers for years, through crafts. About a year ago, this exploded."
Each bird has 200 to 280 feathers that are sellable, Whiting said, and his company ships out 65,000 feathered bird hides each week.
Right now, that's not enough to meet demand, but there's not much Whiting can do about it. It takes about a year of coddling to get a rooster to develop suitable plumage.
"They're not good for anything else. They're miserable (egg) layers. The birds need to really be pampered," Whiting said. "If you don't pamper them, they won't grow good feathers."
Chickens sold in stores, he said, live 35 to 45 days. His live for nearly a year before getting painlessly euthanized, Whiting said, with the carcasses becoming compost.
Whiting has no idea how long the current hair feathers trend will last, so he intends to carry on just the same way he has for the last two decades.
Some of Whiting's feathers are now in the hands of Jenna Chupurdy of Orange. They've helped her to learn quite a bit about small business.
Chupurdy is a junior at UC Santa Barbara, studying business economics and accounting, but she's also created a brisk business on the side by crafting and selling hair extensions.
"It's not messing up your hair at all. You don't have to dye it, and there's no damage. It looks exactly like your hair does," Chupurdy said. "It's a fun little attraction for people to look at. It doesn't require any maintenance."
She sells them for $10 apiece.
Ann Stamper, vice president for Marriott's, said management has limited sales to make sure long-time customers who use the feathers for flies can get the material for their craft.
A half a
dle – or the skin of the rooster's hind quarters, containing about 200 feathers – sells for $50.
"One lady who left was disappointed we would only sell her five," Stamper said. "It's crazy. We can't keep them in stock. I don't know if it's going to be a phase, like the Beanie Babies
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Employees of Bob Marriott's Flyfishing Store in Fullerton have been bombarded with people seeking the scarce type of chicken plumage many women have been weaving, dyeing and placing in their hair as part of a hot trend.
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[/center]Steve Oualline of Bob Marriott's Flyfishing Store in Fullerton displays taxidermied roosters similar to the ones that have been providing the feathers the hottest new fashion trend – feathered hair extensions. The store has been inundated with women seeking the feathers.
"We get anywhere from five to a dozen phone calls each day from women asking for these feathers," said Steve Oualline, a salesman at the store for 15 years.
"We've had some people saying they've been doing it for two or three years. It's really creating a run on the feathers," Oualline said. "I had one lady who wanted to place a $10,000 order. We had to tell her, 'We'd love to do that, but we can't get them.' "
It was around October or November when more and more women began to call Marriott's looking for the feathers, saying they'd become expensive at hair salons.
Somehow the word got out that the store stocked these special feathers.
"We're the biggest fly-fishing store in California, if not the West Coast," Oualline said. "It's caught us by surprise as much as anyone else."
Mary Lee Wood, who owns Salon Incognito in San Clemente with her husband, Chris, said TV played heavily into the groundswell.
"The flavor of the month is feathers because of Steven Tyler on 'American Idol,' " she said. "He has them in his hair."
When her usual Internet suppliers' stock vanished, Wood also went to Marriott's.
"I spent $600 at Bob Marriott's," she said, to replenish her quill collection.
Customer after customer asks her for the feathers, which Wood sells at $15 for a cluster of four feathers.
"I just sold $100 worth to one girl," Wood said.
What makes these feathers so special?
They're not from an ordinary Foster Farms fryer.
The feathers are long, 12 to 14 inches, compared with a couple of inches for the typical clucker.
"They're bred specifically for that length. The fibers coming off the stem are the same length at one end of the feather as they are at the other," Oualline said.
Those same qualities make the feathers attractive to fly fishermen, who used them to craft flies mimicking insects that sit atop water.
"Not only do they give the impression of antennae and legs, they stabilize the fly on the water," Oualline said. "There's not an alternative. The quality of these feathers is essential if you want to have a quality fly."
The stock sold at Marriott's comes from Whiting Farms, a specialty ranch in Delta, Colo. Whiting Farms is the largest of a handful of fowl-raising operations that produce specialized feathers for fly tying.
Company founder Thomas Whiting has a degree in genetics and specializes in breeding roosters that produce plumage with "grizzly" – a special black-and-white feather pattern prized by fly tiers.
Recently, he took to one of the farm's enormous barns (Whiting Farms has 250 million square feet of chicken roosts) seeking refuge from the buzzing phones at his office.
"I had to get away from the aggressive salon owners," he said via cell phone, a cacophony of rooster calls filling the background. "I've been doing this for 22 years, but it's been almost exclusively for fishing flies. I've been trying to find other markets for the feathers for years, through crafts. About a year ago, this exploded."
Each bird has 200 to 280 feathers that are sellable, Whiting said, and his company ships out 65,000 feathered bird hides each week.
Right now, that's not enough to meet demand, but there's not much Whiting can do about it. It takes about a year of coddling to get a rooster to develop suitable plumage.
"They're not good for anything else. They're miserable (egg) layers. The birds need to really be pampered," Whiting said. "If you don't pamper them, they won't grow good feathers."
Chickens sold in stores, he said, live 35 to 45 days. His live for nearly a year before getting painlessly euthanized, Whiting said, with the carcasses becoming compost.
Whiting has no idea how long the current hair feathers trend will last, so he intends to carry on just the same way he has for the last two decades.
Some of Whiting's feathers are now in the hands of Jenna Chupurdy of Orange. They've helped her to learn quite a bit about small business.
Chupurdy is a junior at UC Santa Barbara, studying business economics and accounting, but she's also created a brisk business on the side by crafting and selling hair extensions.
"It's not messing up your hair at all. You don't have to dye it, and there's no damage. It looks exactly like your hair does," Chupurdy said. "It's a fun little attraction for people to look at. It doesn't require any maintenance."
She sells them for $10 apiece.
Ann Stamper, vice president for Marriott's, said management has limited sales to make sure long-time customers who use the feathers for flies can get the material for their craft.
A half a
dle – or the skin of the rooster's hind quarters, containing about 200 feathers – sells for $50."One lady who left was disappointed we would only sell her five," Stamper said. "It's crazy. We can't keep them in stock. I don't know if it's going to be a phase, like the Beanie Babies
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