Nostalgia: When you were judged by the shape of your hat

That’s where milliners came in.

Today it is a profession associated with the vanity headwear favoured by racegoers at Ascot, York or Doncaster on ladies’ day. But until the 1960s, millinery – the word comes from the Italian city of Milan, which was considered home to the best bonnets, gloves and ribbons of the Renaissance – was as much a part of day-to-day dress as a summer coat, and not just for women.

Indeed, a gentleman’s place in society could be determined by his choice of titfer – a bowler for the city businessman, a fedora or a more rakish trilby for professional types, and a flat cap or deerstalker in the country. The bowler, uniquely, had a dual identity, being often sported by tradesmen above their overalls as an alternative to a cap.

The first milliners were felt blockers who made hats from wool and rabbit hair. Just as shoemaking was a local craft in Northampton, millinery was practiced principally in and around Dunstable, moving to the relative metropolis of Luton when the railways arrived.

Other countries also had their centres of industry, and by the late Victorian age there were more than 8,000 practitioners in London and Paris alone. In New York, it was said that some 83,000 women workers were employed – often in sweatshops – in blocking, trimming and finishing the materials.

Today, it is China and the Far East that are the production powerhouses for Panamas, baseball caps and other styles that have survived the centuries. But mass-production has not entirely replaced the basic technique of wrapping crowns and brims around a wooden hat block, curated especially for each design.

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