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FELT SPECIAL
In the early twentieth century, many European countries had a thriving hat industry, which included dozens of factories. In these factories, the hat bodies needed for the manufacturing of their felt hats were often produced in-house. Nowadays, just a small percentage of hat factories are left, and factories that specialise in the manufacturing of felt are even more rare. However, they do still exist, using knowledge and experience gained over decades or, in some cases, more than a century to create high-quality wool and fur felts. Thanks in part to the pandemic, these factories are even
factories Felt by Elly Stemerdink
keep their doors closed for a longer period of time. The substantial rise
in shipping costs, and on top of that the increased demand from consumers for high-quality sustainably produced articles, made companies in Europe and the US decide to return to the European manufacturers for their felt orders. This development may sound like good news for some.
working at full capacity at the moment. Customers who moved (part of) their orders to China in previous years did not receive any deliveries when that country went into lockdown and forced factories to
However, it also presents a number of challenges, as the availability of raw material needed for the production of felt is limited, and training more skilled workers takes time, which currently results in longer delivery periods. This is reason enough, then, to pay a visit to three different felt manufacturers – Tonak in Czech Republic, fepsa in Portugal, and MontCapel in France – to hear more about producing felt in modern times.
Tonak
production of fur felt hats. In 1869 the company received the name it would keep for almost 100 years: Johann Hückel’s Söhne. It
Hat making in the town of Nový in the Czech Republic can be
dated back to 1630 when the town council confirmed the articles of the hat makers’ guild. Journeyman Jan Nepomuk Hückel was admitted to the guild in 1799 where he founded his own hat making business. In 1865, machines were installed on the shop floor, turning the company into the founder of machine factory
remained a family business for more than 150 years until the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia nationalised the Hückel hat factory in 1947 and changed its name to Tonak. The Velvet Revolution of 1989 ended Tonak’s state-ownership and in 1990 it officially became a shareholders’ company with some 40 per cent of its assets in the hands of private owners. In its heyday the
company had a workforce of around 4,000 people, and even today Tonak is an important employer in the area. Key account
manager Jitka Tiahanová says: “Currently about 250 people are working at the factory, and we are hiring as there is a growing demand for our products again now that we seem to have the Covid-period behind us. In the past, Tonak had its own training school; nowadays we train the workers from scratch on the shop floor. A lot of workers started in the raw production department and moved
Wrapping wool fleece to form the base of a hat body >>
november 2022 | 49
Photos by Piet de Meijer & Elly Stemerdink
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