@the_london_spy: I stumbled across the Museum in this famous hat shop today, and couldn’t believe what I found. Founded in Saint James in 1676, As austerity gives way to aestheticism in Charles II’s reign, hatter Robert Davis opens a shop on St. James’s Street to cater for the fashionable upper classes. it moved across the road to this location in 1765. In 1800, Admiral Lord Nelson visits Lock & Co. for the first time to order a "cocked hat and cockade 7 1/8th full" - his signature bicorne complete with eyeshade. He returns in subsequent years to order two more. His final visit is recorded in September 1805, when he settles his bill before sailing to Spain. He would never return, losing his life in the Battle of Trafalgar against Admiral Villeneuve. In 1852, Precision and personalisation come to hat making, as the conformateur, a head-measuring device is invented in France by Allié-Maillard. Lock & Co. still uses a conformateur to fit hard hats to this day. In 1882, Lock & Co. sells a black fedora to the flamboyantly dressed, fiercely witty writer, Oscar Wilde to wear on his US lecture tour. Due to his incarceration at Pentonville and Wandsworth prisons, Wilde was unable to pay his final hat bill. Oscar Wilde’s unpaid bill for £3:30 at Lock and Co Hatters in St James’ was finally settled by an unrelated donor in 2000. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t add inflation or interest. Famed for his personal style as much as his politics, Sir Winston Churchill wears a Lock & Co. silk top hat on his wedding day to Clementine Hozier. He returns in 1911. Charlie Chaplin, who visits for the first time in 1952 and has his head measured with the conformateur. He sends a thank-you letter to Lock & Co. in 1962. #thelondonspy #davidharry #hatshop #hatters #samuelljackson #kingsman #lockandco #lockandcohatters #stjamesstreet #nicholascage #londontourguide #millinery

David Harry - The London Spy

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Friday 24 November 2023 17:42:50 GMT