Toppers Unite

[CraigEster]

Interesting, Craig.

Can you post your work in progress on this one?

When it's done I'll do a before-and-after post with images I've taken in the same place under the same lighting. Some of the bits of the hat are in a hat box because they're fragile. The hat itself is also a source of frustration at the moment, as most of the more intensive repairs are.

Shellac is a wonderful material and it is also something that takes a lot of time to master, if it is even possible to reach a level of mastery with it. The wonderfully firm and rigid hats we have today are molecularly cross-linked from age and the unique properties of the "coodle" recipes used in the past. I'm working on this area of research but it is slow and highly technical.

Anyway, shellac takes a long time to cure. Shellac actually goes through three phases of drying:
1) being dry to the touch or seemingly dry, which takes anywhere from a half hour to a few hours
2) being seeming firm, which can take a day or two when used as a stiffener
3) being actually dry, which takes a month or more
4) curing, which is molecular cross-linking caused by various factors

The last stage is why very old damage is far harder to repair - the shellac has a shape memory in that broken position. Compared to fixing that, new damage is a dream to fix. However, with the extreme damage that taller hat went through, there's no easy route to a full repair.

 

[steur]

Meddens top hat. Size 60 (7 1/2 American). Bound brim at 5cm and the crown at 14cm. Plenty of top hats to be found around these parts, but rarely one in a large size.
Meddens was a chain of fashion stores with branches in Amsterdam, (Heiligeweg), Arnhem, The Hague, Haarlem, Hilversum, Leidschendam and Rotterdam. The first branch was opened in Rotterdam on 1 May 1830 by Bernard I. Meddens. At that time, the company focused on the production of corsets. Until its closure in 2011, it remained a family business for five generations.

 

[Steve1857]

Meddens top hat. Size 60 (7 1/2 American). Bound brim at 5cm and the crown at 14cm. Plenty of top hats to be found around these parts, but rarely one in a large size.
Meddens was a chain of fashion stores with branches in Amsterdam, (Heiligeweg), Arnhem, The Hague, Haarlem, Hilversum, Leidschendam and Rotterdam. The first branch was opened in Rotterdam on 1 May 1830 by Bernard I. Meddens. At that time, the company focused on the production of corsets. Until its closure in 2011, it remained a family business for five generations.

That looks a beauty, Stefan.

Be interesting to know who actually made it.

I'm looking forward to seeing whose well proportioned head that one is going to sit atop of.

 

[Mean Eyed Matt]

Meddens top hat. Size 60 (7 1/2 American). Bound brim at 5cm and the crown at 14cm. Plenty of top hats to be found around these parts, but rarely one in a large size.
Meddens was a chain of fashion stores with branches in Amsterdam, (Heiligeweg), Arnhem, The Hague, Haarlem, Hilversum, Leidschendam and Rotterdam. The first branch was opened in Rotterdam on 1 May 1830 by Bernard I. Meddens. At that time, the company focused on the production of corsets. Until its closure in 2011, it remained a family business for five generations.

Great! Especially great in this size! And the silk plush also seems to be in excellent condition! Congratulations, Stefan.

 

[steur]

That looks a beauty, Stefan.

Be interesting to know who actually made it.

I'm looking forward to seeing whose well proportioned head that one is going to sit atop of.

Great! Especially great in this size! And the silk plush also seems to be in excellent condition! Congratulations, Stefan.

Thank you, gentlemen. Hard to tell who was the maker. Both the silk on the topside of the brim and the silk lining (rather than the more common paper) make me think it's an earlier one, which doesn't narrow the number of possible makers down.

 

[Steve1857]

I believe this is the first Oscar Bluth hat we've seen on the FL.

Crown height is just under 15cm. Brim width 5cm.

A simple ribbon treatment

Bell shaped box

​

With a blue and white stripped mount for the hat

​

Originally, there were three clasps to hold the bottom part of the box to the bell part. Sadly, one of them is missing

 

[steur]

I believe this is the first Oscar Bluth hat we've seen on the FL.

Crown height is just under 15cm. Brim width 5cm.

View attachment 710457

A simple ribbon treatment

View attachment 710458

Bell shaped box

​

View attachment 710459

With a blue and white stripped mount for the hat

View attachment 710460

​

Originally, there were three clasps to hold the bottom part of the box to the bell part. Sadly, one of them is missing

View attachment 710461

Very cool, Steve. These boxes rarely survive in one piece.

 

[Steve1857]

Very cool, Steve. These boxes rarely survive in one piece.

Thanks, Stefan.

I was gratefully surprised to see this one in such good condition considering its age. It just had to be a part of my Top Hat collection.

 

[Steve1857]

From Danish hatmaker, August Heinrich Vaupel, this almost 130 year old silk Topper.

August Vaupel was the son of Henrich Cristof Vaupel who moved from Hannover in Germany to Copenhagen, Denmark.

He became a hatmaker as did his son August.

The hat box, though not in the best of condition, has a wonderful image of what the shop used to look like back in the day.

The hat was originally owned by the sellers great grandfather, Kristian Rasmussen Lohmann. He was a land owner/farmer from the village of Aasum close to Odense, Denmark's 3rd largest town. He was also a member of the Danish Parliament (Folketing).

This Top Hat was bought on the occassion of his election to Parliament in 1898.

His initials are embossed in the liner.

The bell shaped crown and curve of the brim are indicative of the time period.

A second hatband was also included. This would most likely have been used to show mourning.

Though the box says size 5, it fits my 5.5 head very well.

 

[Rmccamey]

Your top hat collection just keeps improving, Steve! Thanks for sharing.

I believe this is the first Oscar Bluth hat we've seen on the FL.

Crown height is just under 15cm. Brim width 5cm.

View attachment 710457

A simple ribbon treatment

View attachment 710458

Bell shaped box

​

View attachment 710459

With a blue and white stripped mount for the hat

View attachment 710460

​

Originally, there were three clasps to hold the bottom part of the box to the bell part. Sadly, one of them is missing

View attachment 710461

From Danish hatmaker, August Heinrich Vaupel, this almost 130 year old silk Topper.

View attachment 711968

August Vaupel was the son of Henrich Cristof Vaupel who moved from Hannover in Germany to Copenhagen, Denmark.

He became a hatmaker as did his son August.

The hat box, though not in the best of condition, has a wonderful image of what the shop used to look like back in the day.

View attachment 711969

The hat was originally owned by the sellers great grandfather, Kristian Rasmussen Lohmann. He was a land owner/farmer from the village of Aasum close to Odense, Denmark's 3rd largest town. He was also a member of the Danish Parliament (Folketing).

This Top Hat was bought on the occassion of his election to Parliament in 1898.

View attachment 711970

His initials are embossed in the liner.

View attachment 711981

The bell shaped crown and curve of the brim are indicative of the time period.

View attachment 711971

View attachment 711972

A second hatband was also included. This would most likely have been used to show mourning.

View attachment 711983

Though the box says size 5, it fits my 5.5 head very well.

View attachment 711982

 

[Steve1857]

Your top hat collection just keeps improving, Steve! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, Randy, you are most welcome.

The Top Hats just seem to keep on finding me

 

[steur]

From Danish hatmaker, August Heinrich Vaupel, this almost 130 year old silk Topper.

View attachment 711968

August Vaupel was the son of Henrich Cristof Vaupel who moved from Hannover in Germany to Copenhagen, Denmark.

He became a hatmaker as did his son August.

The hat box, though not in the best of condition, has a wonderful image of what the shop used to look like back in the day.

View attachment 711969

The hat was originally owned by the sellers great grandfather, Kristian Rasmussen Lohmann. He was a land owner/farmer from the village of Aasum close to Odense, Denmark's 3rd largest town. He was also a member of the Danish Parliament (Folketing).

This Top Hat was bought on the occassion of his election to Parliament in 1898.

View attachment 711970

His initials are embossed in the liner.

View attachment 711981

The bell shaped crown and curve of the brim are indicative of the time period.

View attachment 711971

View attachment 711972

A second hatband was also included. This would most likely have been used to show mourning.

View attachment 711983

Though the box says size 5, it fits my 5.5 head very well.

View attachment 711982

Fantastic find, Steve. Great bell shape and nice brim swoop on this. For a hat of that age it looks to be in great condition.

 

[Steve1857]

Fantastic find, Steve. Great bell shape and nice brim swoop on this. For a hat of that age it looks to be in great condition.

Thanks Stefan.

It has definitely been well looked after all these years. Thankfully!

 

[Rmccamey]

If you find a short version of a top hat (ie, a coach hat) as you search, keep me in mind. We may have to make a deal My Cambridge bowler is just right and checks in with a crown of only 5 1/4 in., but the straight sides and flat top make it look much taller.

Thanks, Randy, you are most welcome.

The Top Hats just seem to keep on finding me

 

[Steve1857]

If you find a short version of a top hat (ie, a coach hat) as you search, keep me in mind. We may have to make a deal My Cambridge bowler is just right and checks in with a crown of only 5 1/4 in., but the straight sides and flat top make it look much taller.

View attachment 712136 View attachment 712137 View attachment 712138

I'll keep you in mind Randy if I come across one, though I wouldn't mind one myself

 

[steur]

Posted it in the Hat Books thread, but that was the shorter version. There is something more to say about this subject. Here goes.

Émile Huber et la peluche de soies (Édition Confluence)

Didier Hemmer

Gérard Saleron

360 pages

It has been a well established fact that modern toppers no longer have the same luster as they once had. The main cause, aside from the very limited demand for top hats, is that the silk plush once used for their production is no longer manufactured and hasn’t been for a long time. Modern top hats are felt hats made with hare hair, which is polished to at least approach the shine of the original product. This has some thinking it must be possible with our modern technology to recreate the silkplush as it was once produced and maybe also recreate top hats in the same manner. In order to do that we must know more about how the original silkplush was produced.

Unfortunately very little has been written about top hats and silk plush specifically, so I had high hopes when I found this book, which concentrates on what once was the largest manufacturer of silk plush in the world. Let’s have look on how I fared.

Émile Huber&Cie was located in Sarreguemines, its French name, or Saargemünd in the German language. You’d be forgiven not to be able to point it out on a map. It sits right on the French-German border in the Lorraine region of France more or less between Strassbourg and Luxembourg. Historically the region Alsace-Lorraine switched between France and Germany a few times.

The 19th century is period of massive changes in general and for the hat industry in particular. It is no coincidence that the big names in hatting all have their origins in the mid to late 19th century. It developed from a cottage industry and small scale artisanal profession to large scale industrial manufacturing in just a few decades. The upcoming bourgeoisie with its ambition for upward mobility was both a driving force and a growing market for luxury goods like the top hat. Progress in science offered big opportunities. Émile Huber was more or less the embodiment of all these changes.

The book is far more about the man than it is about the technical side of the product, as is more often the case with these books. The books on Battersby, Lock&Co and Borsalino have the same focus on the manufacturers rather than the manufacturing.

What was it about the silkplush made by Huber that was so special and how did he make it? According to the reviews at the time his silk was known and highly praised for its deep black with tones of blue and green and exceptional luster. Where other silks produced a four spoke reflection of light from the top of the top hat, his was known for its legendary eight spoke reflection. Make of that what you will. Silks with tones of red and yellow were less desirable because they pointed towards discoloration over time.

Here’s a translation of the small part of the book, which actually deals with the manufacturing of the peluche itself.

(…) After the dyeing, reeling, and warping stages, the silk undergoes folding. Then, it is handed over to the weaver, along with the spun cotton weft and the warp of the raw silk fabric.

Plush is made on a simple loom by cutting the silk on a needle, and on a double-shuttle loom by weaving two overlapping pieces that are divided in the middle by a plane running between the two pieces. The fabric is then cleaned, machine-rolled between two rods that shake it vigorously, and then sent for ironing, a two-step operation: shearing and rolling. Finally, all the cotton loops are carefully removed, and wherever the hairs are missing, a perfect mending is carried out. Once well prepared, the piece is folded and sent to the stores.

Plush is made of three threads. The weft is cotton and the pile is cooked silk. The warp of the fabric is raw silk. Raw silk (Kettseide) is raw silk dyed directly black; it remains matte. To obtain cooked silk (Polseide), it must be passed through various baths before dyeing to soften and make it shiny.

The difficulty lies in achieving a shiny, smooth, and durable black. The color fades to red or green over time and does not withstand hot ironing. The key issues therefore lie in the dyeing process. Whoever achieves a breakthrough in the field conquers the market. A race for quality begins. In less than thirty years, three major improvements followed. The application of the gray mordant in 1832 was the essential breakthrough, the one that ensured the future. The introduction of the red mordant came in 1843; it proved to be much more efficient and constituted a tremendous leap forward. Finally, organic chemistry In its infancy, it shook things up one last time in 1860 and enabled the achievement of an unparalleled level of quality, the famous eight-tone black. These decisive steps—still little known—invite a daring parallel with a much more "heavy" sector, the steel industry, with its successive processes: Bessmer, Martin-Siemens, and Thomas-Gilchrist. The evolution of silkplush constitutes a "defense and illustration" of the Industrial Revolution, a concept somewhat mistreated by historians. At this stage, Emile Huber's contribution to the end of the cycle is decisive. It will hold our attention.

Silkplush contributes to the Industrial Revolution in many other ways. They document, at the local level, what socialist thinkers called the alienation of labor. This phenomenon is palpable in the Lorraine countryside. Weavers were self-employed artisans who worked with inexpensive, indigenous natural fibers such as linen and hemp; drapers processed wool. The use of expensive imported textiles such as silk and cotton forced everyone into a state of strict dependence on educated, wealthy merchants, who were therefore the only ones able to purchase raw materials. The weaver thus lost his status as an artisan and became a simple laborer paid by the piece, first at home; then, under the pressure of increasingly rationalized work, he joined the factory. The social question cannot be avoided; it accompanies this biography.

More in part II

 

[steur]

Part II

On a completely different level, plush characterizes one of the important stages of what historian Daniel Roche calls "the culture of appearances." In the 19th century, it contributed to the uniformity and universality of the black color in men's clothing. More than just a fashion shift, the rejection of "pluricolor or multicolor" is a cultural revolution that reflects Western society's shift toward ***ual inhibition, as the English historian Theodore Zeldin described some twenty years ago. In its own way, the stuffed animal is a witness and a symbol of the profound transformation of human relationships.

What we in modern times often don’t realize is the vast amounts of natural materials that were necessary to dye the textiles, felts and silks. For every meter of silk produced, four kilograms of natural materials, usually woods, fruits, nuts and metals, were used to dye it. Anyone who could produce vibrant, stable and cheaper colours could make a killing.

And some did. Enter the aniline dyes and William Henry Perkin, who stumbled upon aniline purple or mauveine in the search to synthesize quinine in 1856 (very useful in this era of exploiting the colonies). Henry saw potential in the discovery and he was right. He patented his discovery, witnessed a craze for the colour and became a very wealthy man. Coal tar from which many organic chemical compounds can be derived was abundant and Perkins certainly wasn’t the only one. The market potential for stable and cheap dyes was massive and the hunt was on. Germany was firmly on the forefront of the innovation and Perkins’ teacher August Wilhelm von Hofmann played no small role after he returned to Germany from his English adventure. The current big chemical companies were founded around this time: BASF, short for Baden Aniline und Soda Fabrik (1865), Agfa, short for Aktiengesellschaft für Anilinfabrikation (1867) and Bayer (1863), founded by dye salesman Friedrich Bayer and dyer Friedrich Weskott, to name but a few.

Dye sample book by Bayer

Dye sample booklet by IG Farben

That’s all very well, but what has this got to do with Émile Huber? Quite a lot as it turns out, because he was educated as a chemist and one of his teachers was the same August von Hofmann, with whom he was in contact when he was barely twenty years old in 1858.

AW von Hofmann

The book has this to say about the period of his life.

(…) On October 29, 1859, it was Jean Keller's turn to discover azalein. Graduating from Centrale in August 1859 "with a second degree in chemical engineering," the young Emile proved to be a prolific "jack-of-all-trades," perhaps forgotten too quickly. He simultaneously conducted research in three areas: henic acid. To our knowledge, the process involving benzine, benzine, naphthalene, and carbolic acid is unique.

He made a very early mark in the race for dyes. Eight months after his arrival, on December 15, 1859, he filed his first patent for a process for the preparation of nitrobenzine and its congeners. "...thus, benzine... after various mixtures, reactions, and washings... I obtain a mixture of nitrobenzine from which I extract aniline, colnidine, xylidine, and ***idine." His contribution was both technical and utilitarian. He achieved better regulation during the production of aniline. Surprisingly, he did not pursue research into synthetic dyes from aniline, which was revolutionizing dyeing.

He thought of achieving this through naphthalene, another tar derivative previously considered waste and therefore burned. Two days after registering the first patent, on December 17, he filed a second patent for a process for transforming naphthalene and its use as a coloring material in dyeing and printing. From the dyes released, he obtained an impressive palette of colors ranging from straw yellow to orange-yellow, as well as a purple, a reddish blue, a pansy violet, a wine-red color, a dark orange, a pansy blue, a pink, and a lilac blue.

The whole thing looks more like a pharmacopoeia recipe than a succession of chemical formulas "...To pour the sulfuric acid, the vapor release must be very low. The reaction lasts 12 hours. Sufficient heat is required throughout the reaction to keep the nitronaphthaline molten. Instead of 40° nitric acid, 36° nitric acid can be used; in this case, up to thirty parts of sulfuric acid must be used. With nitric acid above 40°, the reaction would be too intense and binitrobenzine would be obtained..." A specialist in the subject, the English chemist Troost reported the results but did not comment on the relevance of the discovery. Huber's innovative work briefly captured the attention of the scientific community. On December 26, the Centrale graduate filed an additional certificate relating to patent 6. While still pursuing dye research, he also perfected the extraction of carbolic acid (phenol), "that antiseptic agent par excellence that coal tar contains in abundance," but harmful to living organisms. The process developed did not yet allow for industrial production, but represented a step in that direction. Emile Huber therefore experimented with pharmaceutical research and thus revived the great family tradition. The very tight schedule raised questions. Emile filed three patents in less than two weeks. The approach was a mixture of chance and necessity. Was he repeating one by one the inventions made through fortuitous discoveries, or was he acting under pressure from fierce competition and thus attempting to get ahead of other inventors as prolific as himself? The first version seems unlikely; There is calculation and perhaps even haste in the whole affair.

And there it seems to end and he didn’t pursue this line further. Or did he? Could it be that he stumbled upon an early form of aniline black (or blue) and kept it to himself? It is certainly a possibility. As is usually the case with everything to do with hatting, he was very secretive about his production methods and nothing was or is recorded. From the setup of his production plant however it is more likely that he used a combination of dyeing with both natural materials and chemical means.

How did the production of silk plush work? Well, like most hatting at the time it was a cottage industry. Farmers and seasonal laborers needed something to tide them over during the winter months and weaving silkplush was the way to do that in the region. In others regions, like southern Germany or Northern Italy it was weaving straw hats.

It wasn’t too far from Paris, where the hatters were, and there was clean enough water to be found (necessary for the dyeing process). The silk was provided from Lyon, for a long time the center of the silk industry, cotton thread was used as a base (warp) and came from Mulhouse. Materials for dyes and dyes came from Crefeld and Berlin (Germany).

The manufacturers provided the weavers with the raw material and paid a certain price depending on the length and the quality of the silkplush delivered. Steam powered weaving was introduced and vastly increased production, but also made it necessary to centralize the production. Which is exactly what the silk producers did.

Concusion in part III

 

[steur]

Part III

Huber was a shrewd businessman and a tireless social climber, politically active, staunt Francophile, shootist (citizens able to afford a *** united and practiced for both hunting and military purpose), amateur archeologist and of course a freemason. He fought in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, which ended the second empire in France and more importantly made Lorraine, including Sarreguemines, a German territory. This brought Huber in a unique position compared to his competitors. Being of German descent, the Germans viewed him as a German national, but the French still considered him French. Huber considered himself very much French, but did not pursue the matter, because it allowed him to continue his business unhindered by either side.

Interestingly it seems the market for silkplush was already in decline by the late 1870’s which can be partly explained by the decreasing demand from foreign markets like England, where the bowler hat, invented in 1849, became a popular alternative because it was far cheaper and more practical. Huber had by then switched the majority of the production to velour. And not velour hats, but velour textiles. Émile Huber died in 1909 and had arranged for his company to be sold to his competitors upon his death, not choosing for his children to succeed him.

Huber's house

Huber's factory

In the end the last remaining weaver of silkplush from Lyon left the business I believe in the late sixties, simply because there was not enough demand for it anymore. Some manufacturers had kept enough stock of the material to keep them going for decades. Mark Spoorenberg was one of them and he kept on making the occasional hat right until his death in 2013. See the post in the Beneluxury thread I did on him.

So, what was it that made Émile Huber the biggest producer of silkplush in the world at one point? Aside from his obvious business acumen, it is the same story as with other producers of the best hats: buying the very best base materials and having the best skilled workers you can find. Never compromise on quality. Huber did not pay his workers the highest wages, but he did have a keen eye for quality and made sure he bought the best raw silk he could find from Lyon. Decades of experience and dedication to innovation in the end produced the results that set his reputation. If he did have a secret recipe for the dyeing of his silk, he kept it to himself.

We have seen the same with Borsalino who would not accept lower quality at any price. Rather than compromise and cut costs, they would continue on, even when the company was already in the red and they could only keep afloat by selling off assets.

backcover

Can you recreate the same level of quality and make a modern silkplush these days? Anything is possible. The basis technique of making silkplush is not a secret, but getting it to the level of what the big producers were sometimes capable of after decades of producing, would take an awful lot of experimenting and trial and error and money. And ultimately for a very niche market. So as a business proposition not viable.

 

[Steve1857]

Part III

Huber was a shrewd businessman and a tireless social climber, politically active, staunt Francophile, shootist (citizens able to afford a *** united and practiced for both hunting and military purpose), amateur archeologist and of course a freemason. He fought in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, which ended the second empire in France and more importantly made Lorraine, including Sarreguemines, a German territory. This brought Huber in a unique position compared to his competitors. Being of German descent, the Germans viewed him as a German national, but the French still considered him French. Huber considered himself very much French, but did not pursue the matter, because it allowed him to continue his business unhindered by either side.

View attachment 713474

Interestingly it seems the market for silkplush was already in decline by the late 1870’s which can be partly explained by the decreasing demand from foreign markets like England, where the bowler hat, invented in 1849, became a popular alternative because it was far cheaper and more practical. Huber had by then switched the majority of the production to velour. And not velour hats, but velour textiles. Émile Huber died in 1909 and had arranged for his company to be sold to his competitors upon his death, not choosing for his children to succeed him.

Huber's house
View attachment 713476

Huber's factory
View attachment 713475

In the end the last remaining weaver of silkplush from Lyon left the business I believe in the late sixties, simply because there was not enough demand for it anymore. Some manufacturers had kept enough stock of the material to keep them going for decades. Mark Spoorenberg was one of them and he kept on making the occasional hat right until his death in 2013. See the post in the Beneluxury thread I did on him.

So, what was it that made Émile Huber the biggest producer of silkplush in the world at one point? Aside from his obvious business acumen, it is the same story as with other producers of the best hats: buying the very best base materials and having the best skilled workers you can find. Never compromise on quality. Huber did not pay his workers the highest wages, but he did have a keen eye for quality and made sure he bought the best raw silk he could find from Lyon. Decades of experience and dedication to innovation in the end produced the results that set his reputation. If he did have a secret recipe for the dyeing of his silk, he kept it to himself.

We have seen the same with Borsalino who would not accept lower quality at any price. Rather than compromise and cut costs, they would continue on, even when the company was already in the red and they could only keep afloat by selling off assets.

backcover
View attachment 713472

Can you recreate the same level of quality and make a modern silkplush these days? Anything is possible. The basis technique of making silkplush is not a secret, but getting it to the level of what the big producers were sometimes capable of after decades of producing, would take an awful lot of experimenting and trial and error and money. And ultimately for a very niche market. So as a business proposition not viable.

View attachment 713473

An excellent and highly informative account, Stefan. Thanks for posting it.

I'll be re-reading it a lot while keeping an eye out for a copy of the Huber book.

 

[CraigEster]

Part III

Huber was a shrewd businessman and a tireless social climber, politically active, staunt Francophile, shootist (citizens able to afford a *** united and practiced for both hunting and military purpose), amateur archeologist and of course a freemason. He fought in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, which ended the second empire in France and more importantly made Lorraine, including Sarreguemines, a German territory. This brought Huber in a unique position compared to his competitors. Being of German descent, the Germans viewed him as a German national, but the French still considered him French. Huber considered himself very much French, but did not pursue the matter, because it allowed him to continue his business unhindered by either side.

View attachment 713474

Interestingly it seems the market for silkplush was already in decline by the late 1870’s which can be partly explained by the decreasing demand from foreign markets like England, where the bowler hat, invented in 1849, became a popular alternative because it was far cheaper and more practical. Huber had by then switched the majority of the production to velour. And not velour hats, but velour textiles. Émile Huber died in 1909 and had arranged for his company to be sold to his competitors upon his death, not choosing for his children to succeed him.

Huber's house
View attachment 713476

Huber's factory
View attachment 713475

In the end the last remaining weaver of silkplush from Lyon left the business I believe in the late sixties, simply because there was not enough demand for it anymore. Some manufacturers had kept enough stock of the material to keep them going for decades. Mark Spoorenberg was one of them and he kept on making the occasional hat right until his death in 2013. See the post in the Beneluxury thread I did on him.

So, what was it that made Émile Huber the biggest producer of silkplush in the world at one point? Aside from his obvious business acumen, it is the same story as with other producers of the best hats: buying the very best base materials and having the best skilled workers you can find. Never compromise on quality. Huber did not pay his workers the highest wages, but he did have a keen eye for quality and made sure he bought the best raw silk he could find from Lyon. Decades of experience and dedication to innovation in the end produced the results that set his reputation. If he did have a secret recipe for the dyeing of his silk, he kept it to himself.

We have seen the same with Borsalino who would not accept lower quality at any price. Rather than compromise and cut costs, they would continue on, even when the company was already in the red and they could only keep afloat by selling off assets.

backcover
View attachment 713472

Can you recreate the same level of quality and make a modern silkplush these days? Anything is possible. The basis technique of making silkplush is not a secret, but getting it to the level of what the big producers were sometimes capable of after decades of producing, would take an awful lot of experimenting and trial and error and money. And ultimately for a very niche market. So as a business proposition not viable.

View attachment 713473

There's a part in the book that goes over how secretive Huber was. One of the rare extant records from his factory shows that he bought lemon juice but insisted it be labeled as acetic acid. I don't think any of his employees even knew what they were using.

I've written to Mr. Saleron. His co-author was the one more knowledgeable on the dye portion. He sadly passed, if memory serves me right, in 2020.

Part of the difficulty in researching hat plush is the scarcity of good sources. Huber's factory closed in the early 1930s and was then bombed in WWII. His descendants shared what they had with the authors but it wasn't much. Mr. Hemmert was actually the archivist for Sarreguemines and had access to the best trove of information.

Natural dyes were used until the end of the best plush, which probably came with the closing of Huber's factory. There's a good passage in 'Makers of Distinction: Suppliers to the Town and Country' (by Thomas Girtin, published in 1959) which describes the closing days of silk hatting in London. The era's plush was described as "slatey" and unimpressive. The hatter interviewed went as far as to pull some plush from an Edwardian hat to show the difference.

I've been researching the dyeing and manufacturing of plush for some years. It's a bit of a black art (I suppose literally given the color of the plush). Even if we had a perfect recipe handed down through time, it would only be half the battle. The actual handling of the silk is a developed skill like any other artform. So much is left up to intuition; a finely-honed "sixth sense" even.

The weaving matter is still difficult as well. Hatter's plush was the best of the best, although all the hogwash passed around in London is depressingly far from the truth. They ignore hard work and mastery then substitute in myth and magical looms. Hat plush is something many times more valuable and special than magic, it's simply good and competently made.

Every tiny step was mastered by generations of people that dedicated their professional lives to developing their craft. Huber stood on the shoulders of giants, having come from the Massing Bros. company. He would also have been nothing without his weavers and silk suppliers. The looms mentioned are the two-piece type invented by J. B. Martin, but they were modified by Huber. He also invented a special weave, which everyone then copied.

The connection to this generational knowledge was broken with the fall of plush, and now we start from the beginning. This is why supporting crafts is so important. Once it's gone, it's completely gone.