Trade organization and manufacturing

The organization of the profession
The manufacture of the hat is made by the hatters, a profession attested in Paris since 1323 (Book of Trades Etienne Boileau), which is sometimes grouped with that of the bonnetiers who also use felt (Rouen, Marseille). In Paris, the hatters are first divided between felt hatters, cotton hatters, feather hatters or those of flowers, before being united, then in the fifteenth century, erected in a separate profession of bonnetiers. The trade also exists in other countries: London hatters are a thriving corporation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The occupation, namely the accession to the mastery, the actual work and the quality of the production, is regulated by a series of statutes (1387, 1578, 1612, 1658) and by a series of regulations on the quality in the eighteenth century3 .

With the disappearance of the guilds, starting from the French Revolution for France, the manufacture of the hat also becomes the fact of the milliners. As early as the seventeenth century, the manufacture of headgear completed the production in the workshop: the hats are produced in greater numbers and ready-to-wear.

The formier is the craftsman on wood who carves blocks of linden in different forms, according to the request of milliners or hatters, for the shaping of hats of felt or straw or cloth.

A manufacture almost unchanged since the fourteenth century
The principal techniques of making hats were developed in the fourteenth century and have changed little since. Whatever the material used to make the felt (beaver or bute (former name of the beaver), wool, vicuña (a camel of the lamas family), etc., the manufacturing steps do not change. These stages are five in number, including a subsidiary: hair preparation, crushing, shaping, dyeing and filling4.

The preparation of the hair consists in cutting the hair of beaver and vicuña of the skins, then in purifying them by arching them (a kind of carding).
Crushing is the transformation of this hair into felt: before the mechanization in the nineteenth century, the hair or wool carded are arranged in sort of triangles called capades, which are joined to form a bell. The crowd, by the action of the hot water and the movement of back and forth and pressure of the worker, will felter the bell, and give it strength and impervious character. With mechanization, the hair and wool will be blown directly onto a bell shape before it is treaded. During this operation, the bell will lose two thirds of its original size.
The shaping takes the bell to the hat stage: it is placed on a wooden form, which includes only the cap (until the nineteenth century) then the cap and the edges. In the nineteenth century, the bell can be shaped by pressure on metal shapes.
Dyeing is a subsidiary step. It involves dipping the hat in a dye bath (for the black color is used the gallon and then with the progress of chemical dye chemistry) alternating bath and oxidation outdoors. The majority of hats are black, but they can be dyed in other colors, from the sixteenth century: red is a popular color, in 1610 Louis XIII is delivered a beaver dyed in "sea green".
The filling finalizes the hat: after drying it is deformed of its wooden form, unsightly hairs are cut or burned, it is covered with a waterproofing primer, it is added a cap and a cord, and sometim                                                                                               In terms of hat ready-to-wear is the norm. In 1843, two French hatters, Mr. Allié and Mr. Maillard patented a tool, the shaper, which allowed to raise the precise conformation of the head. The conformation of the hats was a compulsory sale stage because of their rigidity (top hat, bowler hat, boater). She was assured by the town hatter. This tool, mainly dedicated to custom hats, is still used for the manufacture of some theater hats. The standard shapes are still used for large retail hats in three conformations: the normal oval, the elongated oval and the round oval