After Rory McIlroy locked up his first Masters title win after 17 attempts, he celebrated with his wife, Erica Stoll, who was unmissable in a crème wide-brimmed hat.

That designer lid might have looked familiar to some fashion watchers, since its creator, Eric Javits, also whipped up the hat that Melania Trump wore for U.S. President Donald Trump’s second presidential swearing-in ceremony in January. Although Javits’ topper for FLOTUS was a top-secret custom operation, that was not the case with Stoll.

In an interview Monday, Javits said he happened to catch some of the highlights of the Masters tournament on television, “because her husband won and did something that no one had done in I don’t know how many decades.”

The 35-year-old pro from Northern Ireland won the green jacket and completed a career Grand Slam by beating Justin Rose with a birdie in a sudden-death playoff. McIlroy was also the first Masters player to make four double bogeys.

Javits recognized that Stoll was wearing one of his hats with a matching tie-front blouse and shorts. The 37-year-old New York-born Stoll sported the designer’s Daphne hat. Shoppers can find it on his company’s site for $288 — marked down from $385. It is also offered in different colors. Although one of his employees knew that Stoll had worn another Eric Javits-designed hat for a different public appearance, the designer, who does not follow the sport of golf, was in the dark. “I don’t know. I don’t really go on social media,” the Palm Beach, Fla.-based designer said.

Uncertain how or where Stoll bought the hat, Javits said it may have been a few seasons ago, because it’s a classic for the brand. The broader brimmed fedora was created with taller women with broader faces in mind for a balanced look, but people with an oval face can also wear it. The style has a little bit of a ‘70s inspiration, since oversize fedoras were popular, Javits said.

Regardless, if anyone knows that Javits is the designer of Stoll’s hat, the media exposure of the prestigious golf tournament alone will help the overall hat business, the designer predicted. He said, “It definitely registers. When you’re out on a golf course, you really do need that in conjunction with sunscreen. She was out there as a spectator for her husband. But sunscreen wears off after one or two hours. It’s not easy to reapply on the course. It makes sense that people want to wear hats,” he said.

Plenty of viewers were watching. CBS reported that 12.7 million tuned in for the final round and more than 19.5 million people watched the tail end. And the hat industry has been picking up. The global headwear market was $26.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.5 percent to 2030.

After the whirlwind of news stories, social media posts (and memes) after Melania Trump donned the custom Eric Javits hat at the U.S. Capitol in January, the independent designer said he “definitely saw a bit of a jump in sales,” social media followers and email subscribers. First-quarter sales increased by 80 percent, and the company’s track record of purchases being driven by repeat customers is strengthening too, Javits said. The brand picked up more than 20,000 Instagram followers too, according to its founder.

Although he went to golf and tennis camp years ago, Javits does not play golf anymore and is not planning to. But going to camp inspired him to design his first visor, the “Champ,” which debuted in the early 2000s. While attending golf and tennis camp, Javits noticed in the pro shop that sunglasses were being sold for several hundred dollars, as they would be at Saks Fifth Avenue or Neiman Marcus. But the visors were being sold for less than $40. “Why should everyone be getting a crappy visor, when you could be getting a beautiful visor? That’s what inspired me to develop beautiful visors,” Javits said.

For durability, it features his patented Squishee material with a structured canvas band that was meant to be easy to wear and more flattering than typical visors. Retailing at $235 at full price and now marked down to $188, the style is available in two different brims.

As for his own preference for tennis versus golf, that decision was not just driven by his father’s playing the sport. “I noticed that everyone playing golf had a little bit of a gut. But all of the tennis players were in really good shape,” Javits said. “But when you’re running you own company, you don’t have that much free time to start something new.”

Melania Trump arrives at the White House before departing for the U.S. Capitol where Donald Trump was be sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in January. ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images

Asked if he personally faced any backlash for designing the hat for the first lady in January, Javits said there were a couple of people, “who said something negative, but not too many. Even people who are not a fan of President Trump did think she looked nice,” he said. “It was mostly positive.”