ALL OLD HAT
11 March 1936 Feodor Machnow in his “awful majesty”
Sir, As an old hatter, I was moved by your leading article on hats. There was a time when a man chose his hat with as much care as he chose his wife. Many famous men have passed through my hands. I had the distinction of fitting Machnow, the Russian giant, with a topper, and I recall his awful majesty when it was placed on his head. The public were spellbound, as well they might be, until that fateful night when a pernickety member of the audience asked, urbanely, if he would have the goodness to remove his hat. Machnow, who understood no English, was unmoved, but his manager’s face blanched. He had no choice but to comply with the request; the hat was removed – and the spell broken!
I remember a man, distinguished in the Diplomatic Service, who spent three hours selecting a hat. I am sure it was longer, but, fearing the incredulity of modern readers, I dare not say so. At the end of this time he declared that he could not settle the matter, but would consult his wife. The next day he came with his wife, who, being a woman of quick decision, made a choice in an hour.
That was a man to stir the artistic soul of a true born hatter. Just before the War, however, we detected signs of decay; men began to show a strange indifference to the important consequences of an eighth of an inch on or off the brim, and they came less frequently for an “iron-up”. After the War came catastrophe; bronzed young men came in casually for a soft felt, threw it carelessly on their heads and walked out without so much as a look in the glass. I realised then that the art of hatting was dead; anyone could clap a hat on a man’s head and throw 30 shillings into the till. I looked back to the spacious days of Sir Squire Bancroft, whose hat was famous in Piccadilly, and Arthur Roberts, who set a fashion with his Gentleman Joe, and sorrowfully sought fresh woods and pastures new. But I raise my hat to Sir Walter Gilbey (whose hat I know well), and wish him every success in his campaign to restore hat consciousness to an effete generation. Frederick Willis on a desert island (or the desert part of an island) with a gramophone, and about four dozen records, and can disprove this allegation completely. The island was Ramree in the Bay of Bengal, and the gramophone had already survived a year of the Burma campaign. Of course the sand got in, but all one had to do was tip it out again. I consider a gramophone a must for any desert island. Mr Roy Plomley’s instinct, as always, is right. Yours faithfully, Arthur Swinson