Squashed Top Hat
I've come across some hats this week that are a little beyond repair! However they're going to make excellent study pieces, however tragic they look in the photos.
This hat in particular has a lot of things intact that tend to be destroyed on other hats. The tip is still completely attached to the sideband. However the base of the crown has come away from the brim, which allows you to see the methods of attaching.
Whilst researching some of these hats, I read a great book called 'A Treatise on Hat-Making and Felting' by John Thomson. It was published in c1860-70, and gives a very detailed account on the felt-making process, as well as the method of making and covering these very hats (link below).
What I discovered was that the silk plush fabric used to cover these hats ceased to be made in the 1960s, and any pieces of it are extremely rare. A roll of the fabric was discovered in an attic and sold to the hatters Lock and Co in London. They announced they would make a new batch of top hats with the fabric, each of them to retail for around £4500. Rare indeed!
Therefore it would seem that any example of top hat with this silk plush fabric is worth keeping - I certainly think so! The fabric is beautiful to look at, and could even be removed from some of the hats and used in other projects - it has a lovely sheen.
All of the hats I've come across have various numbers written inside the crown. I'm still yet to figure out exactly what they mean, and I'm also supposing that different manufacturers had their own identifying marks - be it notations for a 'conformateur' machine (see link below) or customer database reference numbers. Or even just the date!
So a little pet project I'm going to begin, not in any huge way, is to list and notate the details of the makers of the top hats I come across. There's a batch of 20+ hats at the costume shop I work at, but I'd love to compile others, so if you have a vintage topper, please get in touch!
Link to 'A Treatise on Hat-Making and Felting'
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47090
Conformateur
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-man-with-conformateur-device-on-head-whilst-having-head-measured-for-37165014.html
YouTube video of Conformateur
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=-JOET1sdWpY
