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FELT SPECIAL


The sandbags are used to give the brims of the finished hats their final shape. Because of the sand inside, the bags drape perfectly around the block


be to MontCapel’s advantage that they only produce wool felt, as this material seems to appeal more to people who are concerned about animal welfare. “With wool felts coming from China for half the price, I have the feeling that over the past 30 years the idea grew that wool felt is a low-end product and that you need fur felt if you want a high quality hat. I think that that idea has to change because – although wool is never going to be like fur felt, as it is a different product – you can have really nice quality wool felt with soft finishes. Last year we had the opportunity to go to Paris for a vernissage to show our products. One of the French milliners who visited the event said that she couldn’t believe that one of our unstiffened hats which had been given a satin finish was really just a wool felt hat and not a fur felt. That was the first time I thought that we were going in the right direction. Also, unlike the previous factory, MontCapel uses Merino wool from France as the base for all its hat bodies. What we are noticing is that our customers are using our name to show that their product is entirely made in France. MontCapel is going to be


a quality label: my aim is to become the ‘Intel Inside’ label for the hat industry!”


Production


At the moment, the factory can only afford to have one production line running. As a result, only white wool is used to produce MontCapel’s felt cones, to avoid remnants of coloured-wool batches causing stains in white-wool batches. “We literally do every step in the production process of a woollen hat ourselves, including the dyeing,” says Sonia. “The wool comes in at one end of the factory, and the finished headwear comes out at the other end. We focus on customers that outsource the whole production process to us; about 80 per cent of the wool hoods we make are turned into hats in our own factory.” Right now there are ten people working in production, of which five entered the company only a couple of months previously. Getting staff and, perhaps more so, retaining them can be quite challenging. “In the old days, every worker did just one step of the production process. For some processes, we only have one person who knows how to do it, so when that person is not here, the process stops. Over time, we need at least two people who know how each step works. This also makes the work more interesting.”


Next steps


Despite the successful first moves, the factory requires much more investment as renovation is necessary. MontCapel managed to get a substantial renovation budget as part of a bigger restoration plan for the building. “We only need half of the space we currently have,” says Sonia. “The other half of the building is going to be dedicated to other municipal activities. Once the project is decided, the town council is going to launch a tender for the renovation. This is an enormous project for the region and although we know where we want to go with this rural development project, we also know it will take years to bring to fruition.” The renovation of the factory is part of the town council’s plan to extend cultural and tourist activities in the area. Already groups can come to see the production process in the factory. In the summer, on Sundays and Mondays, MontCapel offers tours, which attracted over 400 visitors over a couple of weekends. The tours are free and afterwards visitors can buy a hat – which a lot of them do. “People love knowing where their clothes come from. We really take the time to show everybody what fits them and write down their head sizes to make people understand a bit more about their head.”


There is still quite a way to go, but the biggest hurdle is already overcome. And as Sonia says: “In the end, the factory doesn’t have to be as big as possible – we just want to make it work. We are not scared about what we are doing and we are very proud of what we produce.”


More information www.montcapel.com


Each hat body is weighed separately to check whether enough wool was added


november 2022 | 55


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