by Ki Hackney

Spring might be scratching at the door, but winter’s cold isn’t over yet. We still need our warm, windproof accessories at the ready. And, this year, the across-the-decades favorite is the fluffy fur trapper hat. I saw a wonderfully textured octogenarian walking past Starbuck’s the other day, with her groceries, perfectly tailored dark navy coat, a simple wooden cane and her mink-lined trapper.

Custom-embroidered brown suede trapper with Finnish raccoon, $1,195.

Just behind her was a tall, angular construction worker sporting his shearling version. And so on, from Mom walking her children to the youngest, lithest New York socialite, cozy, fur, ear-flapped hats are de rigueur.

“There’s nothing more glamorous that fur around a woman’s face,” says millinery designer Kôkin , who recently opened his own shop at 1388 Third Avenue on the UES.  “Fur has a sauvage feeling about it and makes a woman look sexier, even if she isn’t a 10,” he states with his enthusiastic authority. “And there is nothing warmer,” says the man who then describes coming home sometimes to his apartment, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, to find his wife, Blu, “in a bathrobe and her fur hat hat. She wears them around the shop, as well. Having grown up in Eastern Europe, Blu knows how warm they are.