The Spoorenberg factory was founded in Eindhoven the Netherlands in 1820, but at the time it was in fact a tannery called In De Lederen Broek (In the leather pants). As the silk hat industry was booming in England and France the transition was made to produce hats and from 1830 onwards silk top hats. The factory retained the name however right untill WW2. Through merger the company had two locations, one on the Demer and one on Stratumseind, which used the name Millwater hatfactory. After the war the factory in Eindhoven was rebuilt and reopened in 1948 called N.V. Jan Spoorenberg Zijdenhoedenfabriek. Jan Spoorenberg (seen in the group photos below standing third from the left) was not a hatmaker himself but a businessman and tireless promoter of his hats. In this youtube movie (that has been posted here before) you can seen him showing the factory to the mayor of Eindhoven. The story goed that both JF Kennedy and Winston Churchill wore top hats by Spoorenberg.
In a still I took from this movie (second photo) you can just see the brand name "Burton" in the presented top hat. The name was chosen for no other reason than that it sounded classy enough to sell their hats. The man in the red silk top hat which the movie opens with is Mark Spoorenberg, Jan Spoorenbergs son, who took over the factory in the late sixties. Because of the decline in formal clothing the sales were not enough to keep the factory going however and it closed down in 1973 (not 1975 as mentioned in the post above).
Making a jump in time: Mark Spoorenberg sold the inventory of the factory in the mid-seventies to Habig, but not all of it. He kept enough of the tools and supply of the silk to be able to keep producing hats and he did so both on request and as a hobby. The crest on the brand name of that period shows you a tower (third photo), which is in fact a former watertower in Boskoop, which was bought by Mark Spoorenberg to live in. It was to be a millstone around his neck and some newsreports claim it caused his heartproblems of which he died in 2013. He bought the place for a symbolic amount on the condition that he would restore it to a certain level, because it was a listed monumental building. Failing to do so got him into all sorts of financial trouble, with ill effect on his health. He did however keep on making silk top hats right untill his death. Because there was so little left of the precious silk (produced by Hubert of St. Etienne and Roche of Lyon) he had kept from the inventory, the hats of the later period don't have a silk top brim; only the crowns are silk. Very interesting however is that Mark Spoorenberg stated in an interview right before he died that he had been able to source new silk for his hats from India, because he didn't like the melusine or viscose that was used as a replacement material. The producer he found didn't make longhaired silk pluche but was willing to adjust his machines in a special run.
There has been a suggestion that Ton Meeuwis and Mark Spoorenberg were the same person (I believe somewhere here on the lounge). They were not and Ton Meeuwis, (mentioned on page 10 of this thread) is in fact not a hatmaker at all. He was the owner of a company called Black Tie specialized in formal clothing. The company was helped founding by Jan Spoorenberg, who had of course an interest in promoting formal clothing, including the hats to go with it. The company still exists today and is located in Den Bosch (called Black Tie or Meeuwis Herenmode).
In the one but last picture you can see an employee of the factory holding one of the miniature hats they produced from leftovers as memento's for visitors. I posted one of these here before.
Silk top hats were used for formal occasions like weddings and funerals but are all but gone. Quite a lot of them are offered on Dutch auction sites these days and can be had for amounts between 20 and 30 euros in the smaller sizes (55, 56 and 57). Bigger sizes are more rare of course but do pop up now and again.
In a still I took from this movie (second photo) you can just see the brand name "Burton" in the presented top hat. The name was chosen for no other reason than that it sounded classy enough to sell their hats. The man in the red silk top hat which the movie opens with is Mark Spoorenberg, Jan Spoorenbergs son, who took over the factory in the late sixties. Because of the decline in formal clothing the sales were not enough to keep the factory going however and it closed down in 1973 (not 1975 as mentioned in the post above).
Making a jump in time: Mark Spoorenberg sold the inventory of the factory in the mid-seventies to Habig, but not all of it. He kept enough of the tools and supply of the silk to be able to keep producing hats and he did so both on request and as a hobby. The crest on the brand name of that period shows you a tower (third photo), which is in fact a former watertower in Boskoop, which was bought by Mark Spoorenberg to live in. It was to be a millstone around his neck and some newsreports claim it caused his heartproblems of which he died in 2013. He bought the place for a symbolic amount on the condition that he would restore it to a certain level, because it was a listed monumental building. Failing to do so got him into all sorts of financial trouble, with ill effect on his health. He did however keep on making silk top hats right untill his death. Because there was so little left of the precious silk (produced by Hubert of St. Etienne and Roche of Lyon) he had kept from the inventory, the hats of the later period don't have a silk top brim; only the crowns are silk. Very interesting however is that Mark Spoorenberg stated in an interview right before he died that he had been able to source new silk for his hats from India, because he didn't like the melusine or viscose that was used as a replacement material. The producer he found didn't make longhaired silk pluche but was willing to adjust his machines in a special run.
There has been a suggestion that Ton Meeuwis and Mark Spoorenberg were the same person (I believe somewhere here on the lounge). They were not and Ton Meeuwis, (mentioned on page 10 of this thread) is in fact not a hatmaker at all. He was the owner of a company called Black Tie specialized in formal clothing. The company was helped founding by Jan Spoorenberg, who had of course an interest in promoting formal clothing, including the hats to go with it. The company still exists today and is located in Den Bosch (called Black Tie or Meeuwis Herenmode).
In the one but last picture you can see an employee of the factory holding one of the miniature hats they produced from leftovers as memento's for visitors. I posted one of these here before.
Silk top hats were used for formal occasions like weddings and funerals but are all but gone. Quite a lot of them are offered on Dutch auction sites these days and can be had for amounts between 20 and 30 euros in the smaller sizes (55, 56 and 57). Bigger sizes are more rare of course but do pop up now and again.
