Beneluxury

[steur]

Arthur Peppe Top hat. Lower crown and fairly straight crown (less bell shaped). The brim treatment is not as sharp as on some other top hats, but other than that the finishing on this one is excellent.
The crown patch is heavy paper, as it usually is, bit the sides are lined with silk and sewn in under tension, which is certainly not always the case (paper is far more common). The sweatband is lacquered white, which is also a nice detail and would have been seen as appropiate with white tie affairs.

Couldn't find anything about Arthur Peppe, except these two pics of the store in 25 Leys Straat, Antwerp. The shop did make it past WWII, because I have a hat from the sixties naming Etienne Peppe as the shop owner. The hat could certainly have been made in house; the liner crest points in that direction somewhat.

 

[steur]

This has been posted before in the "toppers unite" thread, but just to be complete, here it is again.
The Spoorenberg factory was founded in Eindhoven the Netherlands in 1820, but at the time it was in fact a tannery called In De Lederen Broek (In the leather pants). As the silk hat industry was booming in England and France the transition was made to produce hats and from 1830 onwards silk top hats. The factory retained the name however right untill WW2. Through merger the company had two locations, one on the Demer and one on Stratumseind, which used the name Millwater hatfactory. After the war the factory in Eindhoven was rebuilt and reopened in 1948 called N.V. Jan Spoorenberg Zijdenhoedenfabriek. Jan Spoorenberg (seen in the group photos below standing third from the left) was not a hatmaker himself but a businessman and tireless promoter of his hats. In this youtube movie (that has been posted here before) you can seen him showing the factory to the mayor of Eindhoven. The story goed that both JF Kennedy and Winston Churchill wore top hats by Spoorenberg.

In a still I took from this movie (second photo) you can just see the brand name "Burton" in the presented top hat. The name was chosen for no other reason than that it sounded classy enough to sell their hats. The man in the red silk top hat which the movie opens with is Mark Spoorenberg, Jan Spoorenbergs son, who took over the factory in the late sixties. Because of the decline in formal clothing the sales were not enough to keep the factory going however and it closed down in 1973 (not 1975 as mentioned in the post above).
Making a jump in time: Mark Spoorenberg sold the inventory of the factory in the mid-seventies to Habig, but not all of it. He kept enough of the tools and supply of the silk to be able to keep producing hats and he did so both on request and as a hobby. The crest on the brand name of that period shows you a tower (third photo), which is in fact a former watertower in Boskoop, which was bought by Mark Spoorenberg to live in. It was to be a millstone around his neck and some newsreports claim it caused his heartproblems of which he died in 2013. He bought the place for a symbolic amount on the condition that he would restore it to a certain level, because it was a listed monumental building. Failing to do so got him into all sorts of financial trouble, with ill effect on his health. He did however keep on making silk top hats right untill his death. Because there was so little left of the precious silk (produced by Hubert of St. Etienne and Roche of Lyon) he had kept from the inventory, the hats of the later period don't have a silk top brim; only the crowns are silk. Very interesting however is that Mark Spoorenberg stated in an interview right before he died that he had been able to source new silk for his hats from India, because he didn't like the melusine or viscose that was used as a replacement material. The producer he found didn't make longhaired silk pluche but was willing to adjust his machines in a special run.
There has been a suggestion that Ton Meeuwis and Mark Spoorenberg were the same person (I believe somewhere here on the lounge). They were not and Ton Meeuwis, (mentioned on page 10 of this thread) is in fact not a hatmaker at all. He was the owner of a company called Black Tie specialized in formal clothing. The company was helped founding by Jan Spoorenberg, who had of course an interest in promoting formal clothing, including the hats to go with it. The company still exists today and is located in Den Bosch (called Black Tie or Meeuwis Herenmode).
In the one but last picture you can see an employee of the factory holding one of the miniature hats they produced from leftovers as memento's for visitors. I posted one of these here before.
Silk top hats were used for formal occasions like weddings and funerals but are all but gone. Quite a lot of them are offered on Dutch auction sites these days and can be had for amounts between 20 and 30 euros in the smaller sizes (55, 56 and 57). Bigger sizes are far more rare of course but do pop up now and again.




The second part of the Spoorenberg story contains an interview with Mark Spoorenberg. I'll translate the interview first before I post it here again.

 

[steur]

And here are some more pictures of the factory and shop and scans of the interview with Mark Spoorenberg taken from Mensport (Coaching Sport) in 2013. A translation of the interview is below.



Translation in the next few posts (the limit on the number of characters was exceeded, which caused the universe to collapse - you may have noticed).

 

[steur]

Translation of the interview part I

The best kept secret in top hat country

Honored Audience! Meet Mark Spoorenberg, seventy years young and 'unique in his craft'. Spoorenberg is a hatter. His specialty: handmade top hats and bicornes from pure silk plush. Among his customers are statesmen, royal houses and the clergy, but also numerous stable ranches and coachmen.
A coachman and groom bareheaded on the box of a race? Unthinkable! You should wear a headgear that matches your function and the age of the carriage. For that reason alone, it is a mystery why MenSport did not find out about Master Hatter Mark Spoorenberg much earlier. Apparently he thought so too, because he set out the track himself.
You will think, what a pushy guy. die Spoorenberg '. the spry seventy-something starts apologetically. 'But I had nothing to do for a while, I think making hats is such a fun job and thought: let's make some noise. Only now I am a little afraid that I will soon get too much on my plate. ' Wife Astrid reassures him. 'MenSport readers understand that making top silk hats is manual work and you do it on your own, Mark. You just deserve that national attention! After all, you are the only remaining Master Hatter in the Netherlands - perhaps even the only one in the world - who makes new top hats and bicornes from silk plush and other original materials in a traditional way. Pure silk, no viscose or vintage’.

Hat-trick
Wait a second. Could it be that by chance we stumbled upon the best kept secret from 'top hat country'? Toppers from traditional riding circles are usually not very generous with information about the origin of eye-catching top silk hats. As if they want to keep “their” hatter to themselves. And now that hatter himself is jumping out of the hat. A pushy guy? Not at all. More like a gold nugget. Master Hatter Mark Spoorenberg has long since retired. Recruiting customers through MenSport is not necessary. What drives him is the urge to make historical headgear with the original materials and tools. Completely according to an old recipe. Tangible memories of long-gone fashion periods in the nineteenth century with resounding names: the Empire style, the Biedermeier era, the Romantic era, the Victorian era and Fin de Siècle.


AS MAD AS A HATTER
Loosely translated, the English saying As mad as a hotter means as crazy as a hatter. In the Netherlands the saying “zo gek als een looien deur” (- very different etymology- ) is common. Mercury was formerly used in the manufacture of hats. Felt is made from Russian hare hair that has been vibrated together with a percussion harp. Put on a wet cloth, iron, steam, roll. Mercury was also involved. Mercury improves the felting process. However, exposure to mercury vapors affects the nervous system. Hatters started trembling and then went insane. Mad as a hatter. "My father denied it," said Mark Spoorenberg, who in the photo wears the hat of a cricus director. He claimed that the hatters drank the methylated spirits, which dissolved the shellac. A myth, you know .... "

The hats of the nineteenth century grew, shrank and happily changed with the prevailing fashion image, just like today's clothing. A funny example is the chapeau claque, an invention of the Frenchman Antoine Gibus. The chapeau-claque is a folding version of the high silk. A flat hat takes up considerably less space than a top hat '. said Spoorenberg. 'Useful. if you went out and had to drop off your coat and hat in the cloakroom. ' His glass display cabinets contain an extensive collection of homemade hats, most of them in miniature form, because Spoorenberg's studio is modest in size and he thinks it is a shame not to do anything with the leftover material. They are gems of hats and cocked hats. Take the really tiny top hat the size of a thimble. 'The smallest top silk hat in the world'. Spoorenberg laughs triumphantly as he puts the hat on his finger. A hunter's hat, a fez, a piccolo hat, headgear for religious authorities, richly decorated cocked hats in various designs, you can't think of it as crazy, distinguished or funny as it is there.

HISTORICALLY ACCURATE
In order to be able to make a historically accurate top silk hat for a coachman, Spoorenberg always wants to know from which period the coach or carriage dates. 'For example, the top hat - also called stovepipe - from the first Empire period is perfectly straight in shape. in the early Victorian period the model was getting taller, up to eight inches, while hats from the later Victorian era were a bit shorter: about six to eight inches. The model changes again from 1890. The crown (read: top) then becomes a bit wider and the piece above the brim a bit narrower, which gives the hat a tailored, slim look. From 1920 the hat is lowered again. It is then still about twelve to thirteen centimeters high. ' The Master Hatter clearly knows about the hat and the brim: “I also want to know the color of the carriage. I adjust the color of the cocarde to that. ' The cocarde is a decoration of colored fabric that adorns a hat. Grinning, Spoorenberg reveals the secret of the perfect folds in his cocardes. He uses rice paper fans as a basis. "That's how you get the perfect fold!’ Spoorenberg also collects old cocardes that he keeps in a wooden box. 'As far as I know, I am the only one in the Netherlands with such a collection. Then he conjures up a curious looking device. What do you think this is for? It's a conformateur. You use it to measure heads. This extremely rare device - whoever knows how to find one has gold in their hands - is also in the book 'Crazy Inventions of the Nineteenth Century'. Crazy or not, it just works. For example, if you have a uh ... how, I do that neatly ... 'head for maths ' and it is therefore very difficult to find a suitable hat, then such a conformateur is the solution. '

 

[steur]

Part II
LEATHER TANNING
Spoorenberg's fascination with the 'high silk' does not just come out of the blue, but is firmly anchored in the Spoorenberg genes. Mark is already the sixth generation Spoorenberg to be affected. It all began around 1808, with the widow Cornelia Spoorenberg running an apprenticeship in Eindhoven. Business is not going well and around 1820 the silk hat industry is on the rise. Cornelia & Sons switched to making hats, initially from felt, later from silk. We take a leap in time. It is 1949. Mark's father Jan knocks the 'war dust' off his costume and resumes his work as director of Jan Spoorenberg NV millinery in Eindhoven. Under his inspiring leadership, the company is making name and fame at home and abroad. The top hats are said that belong to statesmen like Kennedy, Eisenhower and Churchill come from the Spoorenberg factory in Eindhoven. Also the cocked hats worn by the riders of the Spanish Riding School, are made by Spoorenberg. Traditional drivers: attention. Who owns a high silk branded "Burton" can be sure that it is an original Spoorenberg because 'Burton', was the brand name that Spoorenberg used and still carries. Asked about the philosophy behind that name, Spoorenterg shrugs 'I don't know ...'

MAIN SHAPE AND SIZE
A conformateur consists of no fewer than 720 parts. The customer puts the conformateur on his head, just as he would put a hat on his head. A series of pins on top of the conformateur presses the reduced outline into a piece of paper. This image goes into the formillion, the counterform of the conformateur. Its wooden arms are pressed against the image. The outside of it now shows the customer's correct main shape and size.

HAT IN THE MAKING
In the first picture. the galette. The base shape of a top hat. to see. In the second photo we see the first covering. At number 3 we see the silver edge of a hat in the making. A top hat consists of:
1 Rosette or rather the crown
2 Card: the angle that the rosette makes with the pass.
3 Pass: the long part of the hat. Two layers of linen are used for this.
4 Pinch: the angle that forms the pass with the galette.
5 Galette edge. Material: molton with a strip of 'mullet' or muslin cloth on both sides.
The galette is made of flannel with shellac, which is dissolved in water and ammonia. The hatter takes the five-part wooden form. puts a cap over it, ties it with a string and irons the linen, with shellac, around it. Once melted, the shape is rock hard. The pass . made of linen is also soaked in shellac. The shellac from the flannel melts into the linen. Now the silk goes around it. It is slightly wetted so that the shellac can absorb a little. Finish with a two and a half to three inch wide ribbon. Mark Spoorenberg uses silk grosgrain covered bottom edges without a border ribbon.


TOUGH MANAGEMENT
Spoorenberg's brothers Jan and Kees do not want to join their father in the company. 'My father was quite a tough guy'. he recalls. 'A flamboyant man. He had taken over the factory from my grandfather at the time. By the way; without having learned the trade. He did pack hats, leaving the rest to the Master Hatter, the masters and the companions. His talent lay elsewhere. In management, the marketing, PR and sales. That was really his thing, as you can also see in a film from 1950 in which he shows a mayoral couple around the company. Everything comes into view, from materials such as linen, flannel and silk to the entire process. You see how the men fry the shellac in the linen with different models of irons around the five-piece wooden molds, causing it to stiffen. You can see how they cover the hat frames with black, very expensive silk plush that was therefore only allowed to be cut by the Master. You can see how they made the raised edges. It's called bridging. In the heyday, father employed about twenty men. Each of those men had his own specialty, something he could do very well and very quickly. The faster he worked. the higher the salary. It rarely happened that one of the men switched to another part of the process, because then he had to start from the bottom up again. The ten ladies in the factory were busy with the 'fiddly work'. applying the ribbons to the hats. In retrospect, my father was sorry that he had never learned the trade, so when I left HBS in 1958 and indicated that I wanted to do something with my hands, he insisted that I would learn the trade. I started working as an apprentice. After I made it to master servant, it took another twelve years before I got enough routine to call myself Master Hatter. '

CAPTIVATED
Mark and his father also set up a chain of eighty shops in formal and bespoke wear. 'Those shops were run by independent tailors who had been displaced by the advancing ready to wear clothing industry. We used a kind of franchise formula. The tailors made the tailor-made clothes for marriages, mourning, chic receptions and the film industry. We supplied the matching hats and were responsible for the promotion and advertising of all stores. "
At the beginning of the 1970s, the market for (formal) occasion wear collapsed like a house of cards. You can also get married, mourn and hold receptions in jeans. The shops in formal wear closed one by one and in 1974 Mark and his father sold the hat factory to Habig. a felt hat factory in Vienna. Father Jan is retiring and Mark becomes director of two brands in the product group of a household appliance manufacturer in Alphen aan den Rijn. He will continue to do that work until 1998 and then will retire. For a long time, Spoorenberg has been happy with 'tinkering' with his home and he is not afraid of hats.

SHELLAC
The raw material for shellac is the resinous secretion product of the small lacquer scale insect (Coccus lacca or the commercially cultivated species Laccifer lacca). This tree louse can be found on various tree species in India and surrounding countries. The shellac is scraped off the tree branches and dried. If necessary, it is filtered by heating it and letting it leak through a cloth made of jute, for example. It is marketed in flakes of various color gradations from blonde (purified) to dark. Shellac is a thermoplastic material, which means that it softens when heated. In the photo on the right, Mark Spoorenberg is holding the end product and tress in hand.

 

[steur]

Part III
Until his son Sander announces that he wants to make his own brown silk wedding hat. Whether father would help him with that ... 'One thing led to another', Spoorenberg laughs. 'We made three hats. One to burn, a demonstration model and the final wedding hat, put together by my son himself, with my help. I gave him a companion certificate as a present for fun, because after one hat you are of course still far from a Master, aren’t you? After all these years I turned out to be still a Master Hatter. I could do it all, I just lost my pace. Now that my dad's things were polished and ready to use, I thought, I'm going to make another one. Astrid describes it as being captivated by the craft .... "

SCAVENGER HUNT
Again captivated by the craft, Spoorenberg devotes himself to making hats and stitches. His first assignment is a purple priest's stitch. He makes his first miniature version of the leftover material. It does not take long before funeral directors, coachmen, royalty and film producers also know where to find Spoorenberg. The passionate Master Hatter is even given the honorable assignment to make an exact replica of the stitch that Napoleon once wore. This headgear can now be admired in the Louvre, next to the original. After some time, a major problem emerges: Spoorenberg is running out of his old stock of silk plush. ' Initially I switched to Melosine, long-haired hare hair felt. You can comb and brush that. For the shine you put some brilliantine in it. Then came viscose, plastic rayon. That does not melt under the iron. Fine, but if you tap the hat, the hairs lift a bit and the shine is gone. ' Spoorenberg finds it difficult and looks for a producer of silk plush. 'Silk is not that special at all. Silk plush is. That is a cotton backing with long hairs woven on it. It used to be specially made for curtains and hats. You can hide the seam in a hat with those hairs, so that the hat looks seamless. That is called “potanceren”. We used to get everything from Hubert in St. Etienne and later from Roche in Lyon. None of those companies turned out to still exist. ' Spoorenberg eventually managed to track down a producer in India. The company makes short-haired plush, but is willing to set the machine for long-haired especially for him. Now that the Silk Road has been restored, the problems are not over yet. "The tresses for a cocked hat were also no longer available."

THE COCKED HAT
A cocked hat or bicorn hat is a headgear whose brim is stored on either side or in three places (- in which case it’s a tricorn-). The cocked hat is part of the official costume of government officials, ministers, mayors, military and court dignitaries. On ‘Prinsjesdag’, there are lackeys in livery with two-sided cocked hats on either side of the Golden Coach. The coachman wears a triangular cocked hat.

They are made of copper wire, gilded with real gold or silver. Only two years ago we discovered two factories that make tresses, one in Germany and one in Italy. I have also been looking for the ostrich feathers, which go on the cocked hats, for years. Sometimes I got my hands on an old stole that I could break down. A great opportunity. For the rest I have had to make do with rooster feathers. I now have someone who supplies bound ostrich feathers of the finest kind. That completes the authentic picture. ' Only the Creator knows how long top silk hats, cocked hats and other works of art will roll from Spoorenberg's skilled hands. It is certain that the old craft will go into the grave with the Master Hatter, because Spoorenberg does not have a successor. 'My son inherits the stuff. What else he does with it is up to him. "

MenSport No. 4 2013


As an additional note to this orginal interview: the silk plush from India didn't work out. In the end they couldn't get the product quite right, so the project was abandoned. They may have been able to get it right given enough time and effort, but an important factor was that the market just wasn't there. Those who still produce top hats all use melusine for the hats.
As stated in the first post on Spoorenberg: Mark Spoorenberg died in 2013, shortly after this interview.


Kennedy wearing his Spoorenberg hat during his inauguration.

 

[steur]

Been neglecting this thread a bit, but something nice came along that needs a spot here.

Vimenet hat in grey. Size 56 with the stitsched brim at 5cm and the crown at 10,5cm at the center dent. Model 65 grammes, but it weighs slightly more than that at 73 grams (they don't account for the sweatband I suppose). May have had a crown patch or crown patch print like the others, but no sign of it to be honest.

 

[steur]

Other than a hat box made for them I couldn't find anything on Jackson of Bruxelles. The history of Vimenet can be found on the previous page of this thread.

 

[steur]

Brummel's fedora in green. Size 55, with the Cavanagh edge brim at a good 6,5cm and the crown at 10cm at the center dent. It is unlined and has a flamboyant flange to the brim, which gives it a certain "bohemian" style. Very lightweight at only 89 grams and the hand of the felt is gorgeous. I'm thinking late forties to early fifties.
Very hard to actually find anything on the Brummel's brand, but the ones I've found so far all seem to come either from Belgium or close to it (north of France or south of the Netherlands), so I'm fairly certain it is Belgian made.

 

[steur]

Brummel's hat in a size 57 (and true to size, so too wide for me). Bound brim at 6cm and crown 10cm at the center dent. Brummel's is Belgian but I suspect they had links to Borsalino, either for their felts or for their finishing (or even both). Well made hats and this one is no exception. Only the liner could do with a washing.

 

[steur]

Chapelier Armand bowler in black, size 56. Unlined and no crown patch either (hard to say if there ever was one). This one did come with its mourning band still there (which i thought was very cool). Chapelier Armand was based in Brussels and the hat is Belgian too, because the label shows the Belgian motto "L'union fait la force" (hard to see in the picture, but trust me). Lovely felt and quite lightweight too (the Kaller is a fair bit heavier). Judging by the sizing label an fairly early one; late forties or early fifties, maybe even earlier.

 

[PanosChris]

All fantastic finds Stefan! Great shape on that bowler! Congrats!

 

[steur]

And now for something completely different. Popular culture can tell us something about hat culture as well. Belgium has a strong hat culture and especially the bowler hat was very popular. The expression of this culture is probably most well known and documented through the paintings of this guy: surrealist painter René Magritte, who depicted bowler hatted figures in several of his paintings.

Usually faceless, like in this example “L’homme au chapeau melon” (the man in the bowler hat). But there are many many others.

From high culture over to low culture. Suske and Wiske is a Flemish comic book series by Willy Vandersteen, hugely popular in the low countries. Starting in 1945 and still running today. Sometimes translated as Spike and Suzy in English, but it never really caught on outside of Europe. Lambik is the breakout character of the franchise and one of the most popular and recognizable comic book characters in Belgium and the Netherlands. Lambik is a middle-aged, fairly fat man who is bald, except for three small hairs behind each of his ears. He often wears a white shirt, a black bow tie and black pants. He is an anti hero. He is a not very bright, clumsy, vain, arrogant, absent-minded, aggressive, stubborn and dominant character, but has a heart of gold and provides comic relief in the series. In the English translations he is known as Orville or Ambrose.

He made his debut in De Sprietatoom ("The Tiny Atom") (1946) where he introduces himself as an amateur detective and part-time plumber. From the very beginning he was always depicted wearing a bowler hat, adding to his every-man appearance.

Now, it is telling us something about hat-culture if we can pinpoint the moment when the character was pictured without his bowler hat. And we can: he first appeared in the story Het Brommende Brons (the humming bronze) without his bowler hat The story appeared in 1971 and likely by then hat-culture was already firmly on the way out, with the appearance of comic book characters trailing behind the curve.

He did not appear with it again for fifty years. Interestingly enough though that when the character goes through a kind of identity crisis in of its most recent stories (De zalige ziener – the blessed seer) that appeared this year, he is actually reunited with his bowler to get him in touch with his “true identity”. Could that mean that hat-culture is on the way back?

He is so popular that he was given a statue of his own in Oostende. The statue does have him appearing with his bowler, the way he was introduced in 1946 (and the way he should be depicted).

 

[PanosChris]

And now for something completely different. Popular culture can tell us something about hat culture as well. Belgium has a strong hat culture and especially the bowler hat was very popular. The expression of this culture is probably most well known and documented through the paintings of this guy: surrealist painter René Magritte, who depicted bowler hatted figures in several of his paintings.

View attachment 332225

Usually faceless, like in this example “L’homme au chapeau melon” (the man in the bowler hat). But there are many many others.
View attachment 332228

From high culture over to low culture. Suske and Wiske is a Flemish comic book series by Willy Vandersteen, hugely popular in the low countries. Starting in 1945 and still running today. Sometimes translated as Spike and Suzy in English, but it never really caught on outside of Europe. Lambik is the breakout character of the franchise and one of the most popular and recognizable comic book characters in Belgium and the Netherlands. Lambik is a middle-aged, fairly fat man who is bald, except for three small hairs behind each of his ears. He often wears a white shirt, a black bow tie and black pants. He is an anti hero. He is a not very bright, clumsy, vain, arrogant, absent-minded, aggressive, stubborn and dominant character, but has a heart of gold and provides comic relief in the series. In the English translations he is known as Orville or Ambrose.

View attachment 332226

He made his debut in De Sprietatoom ("The Tiny Atom") (1946) where he introduces himself as an amateur detective and part-time plumber. From the very beginning he was always depicted wearing a bowler hat, adding to his every-man appearance.

View attachment 332224 View attachment 332229

Now, it is telling us something about hat-culture if we can pinpoint the moment when the character was pictured without his bowler hat. And we can: he first appeared in the story Het Brommende Brons (the humming bronze) without his bowler hat The story appeared in 1971 and likely by then hat-culture was already firmly on the way out, with the appearance of comic book characters trailing behind the curve.

View attachment 332230

He did not appear with it again for fifty years. Interestingly enough though that when the character goes through a kind of identity crisis in of its most recent stories (De zalige ziener – the blessed seer) that appeared this year, he is actually reunited with his bowler to get him in touch with his “true identity”. Could that mean that hat-culture is on the way back?

View attachment 332231

He is so popular that he was given a statue of his own in Oostende. The statue does have him appearing with his bowler, the way he was introduced in 1946 (and the way he should be depicted).

View attachment 332227

Not sure if hats are making a come back, but what a fantastic post! Thanks for sharing, Stefan!

 

[Dutch Men]

Beautiful hats

I see not a branch, I think it is a Dutch hat.

View media item 2938
View media item 2936

 

[steur]

Not sure if hats are making a come back, but what a fantastic post! Thanks for sharing, Stefan!

Thanks, Panos.

Beautiful hats

I see not a branch, I think it is a Dutch hat.My pleasure.

View media item 2938
View media item 2936

Thank you. Could well be a Dutch hat, but hard to say with any certainty. Pre-war there were several silk hat makers in the Netherlands, but usually the hats had the name of the retailer inside of them (and not the maker).

 

[steur]

Le Plumet bowler. Belgian made (likely); no label inside the hat. Size 57 with the brim at 5cm and the crown at 12cm (more or less). Very well made bowler and fits me quite well. I find that bowlers do tend to run small sometimes (they aren't as forgiving in fit as soft felt hats of course).

 

[Pellie]

So @steur, here it is!!

I received the Brummel's lords hat (i think it is). It's a good quality felt. I really like the dark brown color. The seller sold it as a size 57, but i think it's a (small) 58. I have to stretch it a littlebit with steam and then it will fit me. I really don't understand why people sell this for 9 euro. It's a great hat and seems to be from the mid '50's. So i'm happy that i bought it

 

[steur]

So @steur, here it is!! View attachment 382437 View attachment 382438 View attachment 382439 View attachment 382440 View attachment 382441 View attachment 382442 View attachment 382443 View attachment 382444 I received the Brummel's lords hat (i think it is). It's a good quality felt. I really like the dark brown color. The seller sold it as a size 57, but i think it's a (small) 58. I have to stretch it a littlebit with steam and then it will fit me. I really don't understand why people sell this for 9 euro. It's a great hat and seems to be from the mid '50's. So i'm happy that i bought it

Excellent! It takes pride of place in this thread, Marcel.

 

[Pellie]

I already stretched the hat a littlebit and now it fits me