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THE HATBAND TRADITION
Many people reach quite instinctively for some form of headgear made of fabric or straw to protect
them from the sun. But the classic men’s hat made of wool or animal hair has nearly disappeared from
our streets these days. The beginning of the end came in the 1950s, when the car began to replace the
hat as protection from the elements. What a turnaround that was compared to the previous decades,
when no-one would ever dream of leaving home “hatless”!
Yet the purpose of a hat goes far beyond that of protection from the elements.
“One should bear in mind”, wrote experts in a pamphlet published in the year 1950, “that one washes one’s
hands several times a day, yet hardly ever stops to think how much dust and dirt lands on one’s head”! In
other words, headgear not only offered protection from the elements but was also a matter of hygiene.
But even the direst warnings could not prevent the demise of the hat as an everyday piece of clothing.
When the wall first went up between East and West Germany, vom Baur lost a large part of its former
clientele: the men’s milli-nery industry in Guben and Luckenwalde and women’s hat production in Dresden.
In the early post-war period, numerous former East German hat factories were reestablished in the West,
which led to a revival of the business through to the 1960s. At that time vom Baur still produced about
6 million meters of hatband a year! Today only about 30 hat manufacturers are among our distinguished
clientele, some of whom are located as far away as Latin America and Japan.
As one of the last manufacturers of its kind, vom Baur still produces hatbands and hat cords, but they
have now become a select and very small part of our product range.
Dedicated hat wearers feel “quite bare-headed” and never leave home without one. In the market for hunting
and folklore fashion, where traditional headgear still has a place, the beloved motto of successful
gentlemen still applies today:
“If you want to get ahead ... get a hat”!
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