The Hat Factory

This week I had the pleasure of picking up some hats from 'the factory'. When I was told that I was going to 'the factory' I had a very different image in my head to what I discovered when I got there.

It's not so much a factory as an office on the fourth floor of an old building in the Fashion District. In the back corner of the office lies the 'factory' - an ancient furnace that powers the steam irons that are used to shape the hats. The walls are lined from floor to ceiling with hat blocks in a myriad of different shapes and sizes.

The furnace

I was allowed to wander through the blocks and admire the machinery that has not changed since the 1900s. I was shown the sewing machines, that have also never been modernised, and how they are used to stitch the straw together.

The production of the hats are all by hand, there are no giant hydraulic machines stamping out fedoras in industrial quantities. This is an artisan production house that prepares the shapes for some of the top designers around the world. I was open mouthed with wonder at the array of blocks and the possibilities that they conjure up!

Row after row of hat blocks