How Top Hats were made?

[MustangLoverMex]

Hey gang... I like Toppers very much and the one that I have is made of some kind of cardboard with shiny beaver fur in the outside, but does anyone know how this hats were made in the old days? (Any pictures)
Thanks and receive greetings from Mexico City.
Kind Regards,
-Alfonso

 

[Dreispitz]

Fun! I held one of my Toppers in hand, this morning, and was contemplating the same questions.

Like: What is the actual material the body of a vintage Top Hat consists of?

 

[zetwal]

Check out Debbie Henderson, 2000. The Top Hat: An Illustrated History of It's Styling and Manufacture. Chapter three is on Manufacture. Appendices include How a Silk Hat is Made and How an Opera Hat is Made. The body of a Silk Hat was made of muslin stiffened with shellac.

 

[Dreispitz]

Check out Debbie Henderson, 2000. The Top Hat: An Illustrated History of It's Styling and Manufacture. Chapter three is on Manufacture.

Great source! Anybody read it and can give the answers?

 

[zetwal]

The body of a Silk Hat was made of muslin stiffened with shellac.

 

[MustangLoverMex]

Great! I'll try to get that book!.
Anyone has the PDF?

Kind Regards,
-Alfonso

 

[Lefty]

Buy Henderson's books. They're cheap and well worth having on your shelf. I've said it before, I learned more from Hat Talk and The Handmade Felt Hat than I could from everything ever posted on the Lounge.

You can buy them directly from Debbie here.

 

[dhermann1]

A couple things I know. The silk is a material that had some sort of nap to it, because the finishing process involved brushing the silk in one direction till it was shiney.
And there will probably never be proper silk top hats ever made again, because the last company that made the silk had one of those internal family "squabbles" (i.e. a war) and the looms that made the silk were smashed up in the 1960's.

 

[Brad Bowers]

I was going to type something up from this, but decided to post the whole pages. Call me lazy.

From 1924:

Brad

 

[Dreispitz]

Praise be to thy laziness!

No wonder that one cannot get these miracles made this way anymore, today.