Editor’s note: Made in Tarrant is an occasional Q&A series on small businesses started in Tarrant County. Submit your business here.
No surprise North Texas is a big market for Western wear.
One south Arlington-based manufacturer and retailer is trying to increase its market share, making Western hats out of an unpretentious 36,000-square-foot plant tucked behind an Allstate office and veterinary clinic off of West Mayfield Road and South Cooper Street.
No need to apologize if you don’t know Twinstone, founded in 1995 in Long Beach, California, by Francisco Quintero. The family relocated themselves and the business to Arlington in 2018 to take advantage of the central location and less-restrictive regulatory environment for manufacturers. Today, Twinstone is run by the founder’s daughters, Eva Quintero, 36, and Elvia Quintero, 33. The sisters took the helm after their parents retired six years ago.
The company, which sells fur felt hats for $379.99 and up, hasn’t sought a high profile by its own admission. But that’s changing. Almost all of Twinstone’s hats are sold by retailers who buy wholesale.
But with sales weakened by the soft economy and the flow of cheap imports into the United States, the Quinteros last year went direct-to-consumer for the first time.
Individuals can now order on the Twinstone website with free shipping nationally. They can also visit the West Mayfield showroom in person, tour the factory and walk out with a hat, or order a custom job and linger over a glass of tequila.
The Quinteros are honing their brand, dropping lower-priced products, refocusing on their higher-profit felt hats, and using social media to reposition Twinstone as a luxury brand.
Longer-term, once they get sales growing again, the Quinteros want to look into the viability of other retail locations, such as in the Arlington entertainment district or Fort Worth Stockyards. The Report visited the company last week for a Q&A.
Twinstone
Business: Company, founded in 1995 by Francisco Quintero, moved to south Arlington in 2018 and today is run by his daughters Eva Quintero and Elvia Quintero. It makes and sells Western hats, with all manufacturing done in Arlington.
Prices: Range from $125 to more than $6,000. Fur felt hats are $379.99 and up. Highest prices are for hats made of mink. Twinstone also makes straw hats.
How to buy and where to find: Twinstone sells on its website, through retailers and at its Arlington showroom, 1117 W. Mayfield Road east of South Cooper Street. Ninety-five percent of sales are by retailers.
Phone: 682-238-0450
Social media:
Scott Nishimura: How did you find this location?
Eva Quintero: We were looking, and I think it was on LoopNet. At the time, my brother was already living in Dallas, so he was able to come and see the building for us. It was lower priced than a lot of the other buildings, and we realized (that was because) it was abandoned.
Nishimura: Abandoned?
Quintero: Nobody had been in the buildings for years. It was actually pretty bad. But my dad is one of those people that always sees opportunity, and he thought we could rehab it, and we sure did.
Nishimura: What else did you like about Arlington as a location for this business?
Quintero: It’s central to Dallas and Fort Worth. We didn’t want to deal with the Dallas traffic. We do most of our shipping with UPS and FedEx ground, and I-20 being here was one of the main reasons we chose the location.
Sisters Elvia Quintero and Eva Quintero run Twinstone, the Western hat manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer that their family moved in 2018 to Arlington from Long Beach, California. (Scott Nishimura | Fort Worth Report)
Nishimura: Tell me about the origin of the name Twinstone. Are you and your sister twins?
Quintero: We are not, but we do get that question a lot. Even though we are not twins, my mom used to always dress us in the exact same clothing. So now we have to do something funny. My hair is green, hers is purple, and you can’t confuse us anymore.
Nishimura: Your dad started with somebody else making the products you sold. When did you all start making your own products?
Quintero: We started making the felt in around 1997, and that’s when my dad started to buy equipment to make our own felts. That was partly because the person that he had making the felts for the first year, their quality control wasn’t good. My dad has always been a person that has said if the quality is not there, I’m not putting my name on it. (Today) we do a 15-point inspection on every hat to make sure that everything gets done.
Nishimura: How many employees did the company have before you moved here?
Quintero: We had about 10 employees in the factory, and we had about five employees in the offices, not counting the family — my dad, mom, my sister and my brother.
Nishimura: How many do you have today?
Quintero: We have around half. Sales have gone down quite a bit (compared to) prior years. And none of the employees moved here with the company, so we had to hire a new team. When we moved here, for the first year, we only had two employees — and the family — and we were manufacturing everything ourselves. Luckily, before we moved here, we did anticipate that the employees weren’t going to move, and we produced quite a large amount of stock.
Twinstone uses antique blocking machines made in England. (Scott Nishimura | Fort Worth Report)
Nishimura: You and your sister have refined the manufacturing processes. It sounds as if they are very efficient.
Quintero: I will say, we’re one of the few factories that can produce a large amount of hats with very few people. We have found ways to become very efficient, and I would have to thank my dad for that.
Nishimura: How many hats do you produce a year or sell a year?
Quintero: We’re producing about 48 hats a day, about 1,000 hats a month. At our peak, we were producing 120 hats a day, which was 2023. I think (the drop since then) does have a lot to do with the fact that our customer continues to be mostly Hispanic, and the climate right now for Hispanics is not the best.
Nishimura: Why is your customer mostly Hispanic?
Quintero: That was the clientele base that my dad built, and so we’ve obviously continued to service it. Basically, when we’ve tried to get into Anglo stores, they (say) we already carry American or we already carry Stetson, and you guys are Hispanic and our customer wants an American hat. And I’m, like, we are made in Arlington, Texas, how much more American can we get? We’ve actually hired an Anglo rep salesman, and so we’re hoping the perception will change.
Nishimura: Twinstone sells more lines than just hats — boots, clothing — but you’re phasing those out?
Quintero: We want to concentrate and focus on the felts.
Nishimura: How many wholesale customers do you have?
Quintero: We probably have about 400 active.
Nishimura: What’s their nature? Are they Western stores?
Quintero: 90% of the stores are Western stores, all mom and pop, and the other 10% would be boutique stores, quinceañera stores. They’ll focus on quinceañeras and weddings.
Sisters Eva Quintero and Elvia Quintero run Twinstone, the Western hat manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer that their family moved in 2018 to Arlington from Long Beach, California. (Scott Nishimura | Fort Worth Report)
Nishimura: Who is the typical customer?
Quintero: Currently, we’re about 80% men and 20% women in the customer base.
Nishimura: Interesting. I mean, there’s a lot of color in your product lines.
Quintero: Yes, and my dad, once again, he was one of the very first people to introduce color on a large scale, all the funky pinks, purples, all of that. Now you see them everywhere. We have sold a lot of them to musicians, people that are on stage. Now it’s a nice mix of everybody; we have men, women, coming in for color, which is cool.
Nishimura: Is your 80% men/20% women consistent with other brands like Stetson and Resistol?
Quintero: I want to say yes. Stetson has their Charlie 1 Horse (sister) line, and that’s what caters to women. We don’t have a separate line; we kind of just integrate it together.
Nishimura: Tell me more about the decision to go direct-to-consumer.
Quintero: Every major brand kind of does do that, not necessarily in the Western industry. But when you think of any other big brand, they have a wholesale division, and they also have a retail division. And I will say one of the things that also pushed the decision to open up retail is (when) wholesale sales started to become a little bit lower. And because our brand is not the most known brand out there, we thought if we can do retail, we can start to put in a lot more effort into advertising. We can get a return on that investment a little bit easier.
Nishimura: So, obviously, this (Arlington headquarters) is not a retail location. Tell me more about how you guys are going to use this for that.
Quintero: The showroom itself is open to the public. We have every size available; we have quite a few colors. And people can come in, try on the hat, and if it needs a small change here, we get it done, and they can walk home with it. If you want something a little bit nicer than that, then we would not have it ready the same day. But one of the things we do is we give a customer experience that is very different. You can customize every aspect — you have a teammate that’s with you the whole process. We’ve had times where we (serve) tequila and it’s a little bit more of a luxurious experience.
Nishimura: Are you thinking of opening other retail locations?
Quintero: We have considered a solely retail location, but right now, I will say that it’s not in the plans as of yet. Just because with sales being a little bit down, it is a little bit hard to make that investment. But that is something we plan to do.
Nishimura: Any ideas on where?
Quintero: We are considering the (Choctaw Stadium in Arlington). They’re opening up a lot more luxury brands there, like Lucchese. And we’ve also considered the Stockyards, of course, in Fort Worth. That’s very on brand.
Nishimura: Do the Stockyards people know that?
Quintero: Well, not yet. Since we’re not really ready, we haven’t ventured out to talk to them yet about it, but that’s just something that, in the future plans, that’s where we’d like to be.
Nishimura: Are you all doing anything with the FIFA World Cup coming to Arlington?
Quintero: That’s one of the reasons why we’re opening up the tours of the factory, because we do want to give tours when the World Cup visitors come. This is something very Texas, and we are the only people in Tarrant County that are manufacturing hats.
Nishimura: How important is it that you manufacture in the United States? Can you make this product for less offshore?
Quintero: Yes, definitely you can. That’s one of the big reasons we’ve been kind of suffering a little bit, because now there is a lot of competition coming in from Mexico and China for the felt hats. It’s not a good quality felt product. I would say if I wasn’t manufacturing in the United States, I don’t think we’d be in the hat business. I do think the way an American-made hat is perceived in the United States is really different from a hat that’s been imported. The craftsmanship is quite different.
Scott Nishimura is senior editor for local government accountability and a Fort Worth City Hall reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Reach him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/31/made-in-tarrant-arlington-western-hat-maker-twinstone-sheds-lower-priced-lines-goes-luxury/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=582179&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/31/made-in-tarrant-arlington-western-hat-maker-twinstone-sheds-lower-priced-lines-goes-luxury/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>