02/08/2025
Hats:the Opera Hat. Patented by Gibus in 1837 and no longer made, the ingenious Opera Hat (or Chapeau Claque) consisting of silk satin or merino stretched over a sprung steel frame, offered the perfect solution when Top Hats had to be removed and placed under theatre seats. Elegant, robust and reliable, the Opera Hat could be squashed flat and then spring up again on demand.
The Opera Hat is a fascinating, elegant machine. When it opens, it seems almost magical. When it closes, it fits inside your knapsack. If you want to go the full Fred Astaire but still travel light, it is your best choice of formal party headwear. Or, indeed, for the Opera.
In this post, you can see a few of my own personal Opera Hats, which have been making heads spin in Hong Kong since the first outing in 2015, when the event MC created my new nickname: The Man In The Hat! And the rest, as they say, is a pretty good story…