Lock & Co.

[geo]

So, it's just regular rabbit fur felt that's brushed to raise its nap.

 

[BellyTank]

So what's the story with those smoking hats? I seem to remember seeing them in some old movies, but what is the origin of those anyway?

They look like a short fez.

Keeps the (clinging smell of)Cigar smoke off one's hair- the jacket does the same for one's clothes. The origin is no doubt British Imperialism and a style stolen from the Orient.

B
T

 

[besdor]

It's been about six years since I visited Locke . They have a lot of membrobilia from the past . The store is over 300 years old . They don't make a thing in the store as for the mens line . I can t comment on their millenery line .
Tonack is the big Czeck company that is making hats for everyone including Dobbs and Stetson . They use the name Huckel . It's a huge factory that makes all of the velour and suede bodies today .
The last factory in England to actualy make a hat was Christy's but they are gone .
There may be a small factory that makes hats for store like Bates and the other store down the block from Locke , but it's mostly cloth hats .:cool2:

 

[John in Covina]

Smoking gun no hat as evidendence.

So what's the story with those smoking hats? I seem to remember seeing them in some old movies, but what is the origin of those anyway?

They look like a short fez.

********
If I remember correctly they come in at a time when cigars and all things from the East come into fashion, Particulary in GB when their military men are returning home from the far flung parts of the Empire so prior to 1900 (1870-1890?) you get wave after wave of colonial influences. They do look like a fez but they also look like a chinese styled cap with tassle added especially in a satin or silk type fabric.

A smoking hat especially paired with a smoking jacket was to protect ones clothing and hair from the oily smoke smell of a fine cigar or other smoking items, pipe or hooka (the hubbley bubbley) so you may indulge and yet rejoin polite society without reeking.

Gentlemen You may Smoke.

 

[geo]

Tonack is the big Czeck company that is making hats for everyone including Dobbs and Stetson .

Well, that's a very Golden Era-like situation. In an Agatha Christie book set in the thirties I just read, Poirot was complaining that "nowadays everything is made in Czechoslovakia".

 

[matei]

I have a Tonak (?) hat. I picked it up in Bucuresti. It is a low-crown fedora. The felt is very soft yet holds whatever you style it as quite well.

I think it actually shrank though, because it is rather tight compared to when I bought it (unless my head grew).

 

[Salv]

Well, that's a very Golden Era-like situation. In an Agatha Christie book set in the thirties I just read, Poirot was complaining that "nowadays everything is made in Czechoslovakia".

Mmmm ... I feel a thread dedicated to 1930's Czech Modernism coming on ...

 

[SHARPETOYS]

Cheaper with a custom in the long run.!

Could anyone comment on the quality of Lock's hats? There's only one model that has the right look, in my opinion, and that's the "Chelsea". Has anyone examined these hats from up close? Are they worth the 160 pounds that they're asking?

http://www.jameslock.co.uk/prod2.taf?groupId=100007&_UserReference=E74326F785866E5F44170CAA

I have and in no way are they worth 160 pounds. I would have Art or Steve make you a custom hat from a 100% pure beaver felt. The postage is really not that bad even overseas.

 

[feltfan]

I visited Lock and Bates around 10 years ago, maybe more.
Neither carried hats that impressed me as much as the
Biltmore I was wearing then (and that hat doesn't impress
me now!).

I highly recommend the experience of visiting both
stores. But you'll get a better hat from the makers
often listed here. If you're in London and pressed for
time, skip these places and go to Trumper's on Curzon
for both the experience and fine quality products
(shaving goods).

My father wore a Lock hat and it was all right. Mostly
hare fur, as I recall. At the time he bought it, there
weren't a lot of options and they did good work.
There's nothing wrong with their
hats, at least that I saw. They just aren't as good as
some others and cost a lot.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

... Poirot was complaining that "nowadays everything is made in Czechoslovakia".

And it was! Everything from hats to bakelite. Czechoslovakia was the the China of its day. The only country created by the Congress of Versailles that really thrived between the world wars. Too bad the Nazis and the Soviets crushed it.

 

[geo]

Czech hats... It's still hard to believe that Lock is selling Czech hats. Then Bates must be too, and Herbert Johnson. Does anybody know if the Indy fedora from HJ is also made in the Czech Republic?

 

[Rick Blaine]

********
If I remember correctly they come in at a time when cigars and all things from the East come into fashion, Particulary in GB when their military men are returning home from the far flung parts of the Empire so prior to 1900 (1870-1890?) you get wave after wave of colonial influences. They do look like a fez but they also look like a chinese styled cap with tassle added especially in a satin or silk type fabric.

A smoking hat especially paired with a smoking jacket was to protect ones clothing and hair from the oily smoke smell of a fine cigar or other smoking items, pipe or hooka (the hubbley bubbley) so you may indulge and yet rejoin polite society without reeking.

Gentlemen You may Smoke.

Hi to all...longtime lurker...1st time poster, and... while on the subject...

Here is MY hero Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, dressed in what was no doubt the hight of gentleman's fashion at one time...

 

[Raindog]

Hi Rick,
very cool picture The world would be a better place with more like him in it. And, if more people dressed like that it would be very nifty. Welcome to the lounge

Jeff.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

THE KAMA SUTRA OF VATSAYANA.

A COMPLETE SYSTEM OF BAYONET EXERCISE.

THE PERFUMED GARDEN.

THE HINDU ART OF LOVE.

THE PRAIRIE TRAVELLER.

THE RUBAYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM.

EASTERN EROTICISM.

WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA.

VIKRAM AND THE VAMPIRE, or TALES OF HINDU DEVILRY.

LETTERS FROM THE BATTLEFIELDS OF PARAGUAY.

PRIAPEIA or THE SPORTIVE EPIGRAMS OF DIVERS POETS ON PRIAPUS.

And many, many more.



Thank you, Sir Richard! :cheers1:

 

[Alan Eardley]

Sir Richard Francis Burton

Agreed. The reading of my youth, along with Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, TE Lawrence's (untrue) Seven Pillars or Wisdom and the desert exploits of Wilfred Thesiger.

Burton had a beard when he first met his future wife. After a while he shaved it off, and she wrote to a friend something to the effect, 'I knew he had the brow of a god - now I find he has the jaw of a devil...'

Why don't women say that about me?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Perhaps they do ... but behind your back!

 

[jpdesign]

Since it hasn't been said yet:

James Locke Hatters is the originater of the derby. It was commissioned for a customer with the last name of Coke, for his game keepers to wear. So that their hats would not get nocked off in the brush.

 

[geo]

The difference between "hatters" and "hatmakers": hatters, like Lock, buy their hats from a hatmaker, who makes the hats, and then sell them to customers. Since hats came open-crowned from a hatmaker, the hatter's job was to fit the hat for the customer and style it to the customer's liking.

Back in the days, the hatmakers used to have factories in the UK. I learned, to my utter consternation, that there are no more hatmakers in the UK, and the hats are now made in the Czech Republic.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Good for the Czechs, I suppose.

 

[geo]

Bad for me, because I don't want to pay 160 pounds + 37% tax just to wear a Czech hat. The appeal of Lock is that it's British, was founded in 1676, made hats for Nelson and Wellington, it's got the tradition. I would pay a high price for that. But that image does not fit with a hat made in the Czech Republic,in a factory that until no long ago used to make hats that look like this: