Dunn & Co. Great Britain

[FrankMc]

I still have a fine wool Deerstalker I bought at Dunn & Co. men's store, a chain of men's stores in Great Britain, back in 1974. Besides deerstalkers, they sold a fine line of wool sports caps. I know they went out of business in the 90's, but who made their hats and caps, and are they available under a different name?

 

[jhe888]

I don't know anything about Dunn & Co.

I will be curious to see responses about who makes good quality wool flat caps.

 

[John Galt]

It is a very old company, I think. At least I've seen what appear to be pretty old (1880's, etc.) bowlers by this company. I also believe I've seen old ads in the American Hatter. I used to search for old Dunn & Co. hats relatively often, but I don't think they are really that common.


"Faint hat never won fair lady."

 

[John Galt]

Toppers too, incidentally...


"Faint hat never won fair lady."

 

[FrankMc]

Their deerstalkers were great, just wondering if that same hat with a different label is out there, same with the sports caps, especially the newsies.

 

[ManofKent]

Their deerstalkers were great, just wondering if that same hat with a different label is out there, same with the sports caps, especially the newsies.

Whilst they started in the 1880's as a hat retailer, they had moved into general menswear by the 50's. Because they had so many stores across the UK you can find their hats fairly easily. I don't think they were producing their own caps and hats by the 1980's, just branding them. As to who they used for manufacturing I don't know - but I suspect it was multiple sources. Of the large cap manufacturers still making them in the UK - Olney in Luton are a possibility: http://www.olney-headwear.com/specialcaps.html or Failsworth just outside Manchester, but there are a few smaller ones too (e.g. James Dermott )

 

[GHT]

There are plenty of hats, both new and pre-owned, by Dunn & Co. Here's an E-Bay link to start you off.

 

[FrankMc]

Thanks guys.

 

[KarlCrow]

can anyone tell me about this hat I took a punt on, presumably a homburg, listed as a vintage bowler?

 

[mayserwegener]

Do you have it in hand?

 

[KarlCrow]

Do you have it in hand?

thanks for replying, not in hand, and god knows when it will get here (paypal int. shipping). Seller is a charity with no info. Just wondering if the pictures (that's all there were) say anything?

 

[KarlCrow]

i mean the box lid and paper? original packaging speak 1980s, early nineties to me, but i have little knowledge barring general. Hopefully it is fur felt.

 

[mayserwegener]

Dunn & Co. sourced hats so we will need to check for paper labels and other features.

 

[KarlCrow]

thnks, i will when in hand.

 

[galopede]

I have a Dunn & Co bowler I wear when playing squeezebox with my morris team and also one of their flat caps I bought at the shop many years ago.

It was a good, traditional menswear shop when I went there occasionally. Bit like Are You Being Served! The staff called me Sir which I always found odd. They were a hangover from an previous age.

Gareth

 

[Edward]

Depending on what era it is.... As best as I can make out, the bulk of new hats made in the UK now are relabelled Christies - if they're not actually labelled Christies. I think that's been the case since the 90s at least, when the hat-wearing holdouts among my grandparents generation started to die out.

For UK cap-brands mentioned earlier, I have direct experience Failsworth and James Dermott. Failsworth are nice - I have one in Harris Tweed that I bought from Aero. Very much a 50s-style, smaller bodied than you'd see in a 30s cap, but very robust, genuine Harris Tweed, and unbeatable for the money. My Dermott caps, also quality tweed (can't remember if they're badged...), are a little fuller in the body, but again not thirties-sized. Also very nice, worth the money. A notch up, price-wise, from Failsworth, though I got mine on deep discount sale from a website that was closing down. This place - http://topsecrethats.com/index.php?route=common/home - seems it's open again under new management, though they don't seem to have any Dermott in stock. Some nice looking stuff, though, at very reasonable prices.

These days, with a good number of caps under my belt, I'm more likely to pay a bit more for something from one of the smaller makers - Cordova or Simmonds in the US, and Hepville in Germany. Ironically, Hepville specialise in eight panel caps, American style, whereas the one-piece top caps I also like I buy from the US makers! Highly recommend all three. A direct comparison to the likes of Failsworth is unfair as these are two to three times the price, though if it tells you anything all the makers I've mentioned here have a valued position in my wardrobe.

 

[KarlCrow]

ok this arrived, not sure why i bid on it, impulse, i was the only bidder, £30.

 

[KarlCrow]

pristine condition, i'd guess unworn. stiff as the day it was boxed in the factory. Thoughts anyone? You can see a date hand written on the box but that probably means nothing.

not sure about me in a homburg.

 

[KarlCrow]

Dunn & Co. sourced hats so we will need to check for paper labels and other features.

Hi MayserW, I posted the pics above, forgot to link your post so you'd be alerted.

 

[Edward]

View attachment 77271 View attachment 77272 View attachment 77273 View attachment 77274 pristine condition, i'd guess unworn. stiff as the day it was boxed in the factory. Thoughts anyone? You can see a date hand written on the box but that probably means nothing.

not sure about me in a homburg.

Looks good on you. It's a different feel to a fedora, but once you're used to it, very nice. I have a few (they tend to be vastly more affordable than a similar age / condition fedora, all other things being equal), and tend to wear them for 'occasions' (black tie, or graduation days, or weddings, that sort of thing), though sometimes also just general wear to the office. They can be somewhat casualised by adding a pinch - I like then that style. A more common hat than the fedora, and worn the same way, this side of the Atlantic rally until well into the thirties. In England they're now commonly called an "Anthony Eden" by a certain generation, after the long-serving Conservative foreign secretary who became Prime Minister for a brief period (1955-57). Also commonly associated with Churchill. In Ireland, many will associate them with Michael Collins during the negotiations of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which led to the formation of the Irish Free State. (Prior to that, only two known photographs of Collins existed - a situation he had perpetuated, given that he was fighting a guerrilla campaign in which recognisability was not helpful; most of the photographs of him in the public domain in the short remainder of his life thereafter showed him in his CiC uniform). I'm sue there are plenty of others, though of course many modern British and Irish eyes will think first of Don Corleone before them.