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COLUMN


Sombrero de Manila, Inc.


The Philippines


Without a stopover in Manila, I flew directly to the beautiful island of Cebu for Chinese New Year in 2011. As a milliner, of course I looked high and low for sinamay, as it comes from the Philippines. In the end, I only found unstiffened, very loosely woven sinamay in shades of greens and pinks with gold thread running through it. I bought four rolls and still have a lot left today. Based in Quezon City, part of Metro Manila, this hat wholesaler has been in business for over twenty years, supplying buyers all over Europe, North and South America, and Asia. l love these colourful hats by Sombrero de Manila, which are meticulously hand-woven and made of environmentally friendly materials such as raffia, buntal, abaca (sinamay), buri, sabutan, bangkuan, pandan, bacbac and cariqumoy. I need to look these up! They offer men’s and women’s styles, wide brims, the Panama look, woven and blocked straw hats as well as sewn- together straw braid in all sorts of colour combinations.


More information www.sombrerodemanila.com


outlets. One day, I managed to buy a classy vintage Knox fedora. The first experience of wearing a vintage hat was life-changing. Despite its age, I was overwhelmed by the quality of the felt, the detailed craftsmanship and my suddenly improved appearance in the mirror! At that moment, I resolved only to buy hats of the highest quality and began collecting them. Wearing a different hat every single day, I realised that people in Hong Kong were calling me


or ‘the man in the hat’. I also began to understand


that collecting wasn’t enough. I now wanted other people to share in what I had discovered. I started using social media with a newly created brand logo and named it 'The Man In The Hat'! “Opening a hat shop was never in our plan, but we were often


asked where these beautiful hats came from. In 2017, we joined a ‘Movember’ event and made a hat talk session. As a result of the intriguing hat stories that we presented, we sold several vintage hats that night. This confirmed that hat culture can re-emerge and encouraged us to consider a business around it. We moved onto the next stage with a series of outings to Sunday open markets in Discovery Bay [a resort town on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island], which went very well. Many people started noticing our brand and asked: ‘Where is your shop?’ It was only a matter of time before we took the plunge. In 2018, we opened a small retail unit in Sai Ying Pun featuring classic, vintage and custom hats. Now we can say that we are the first and only men’s hat shop in Hong Kong.”


More information www.themaninthehat.com


Hat of Cain Singapore


In November 2019 I went to Singapore for a private hat-making workshop for 20 ladies, just before Covid struck us in China a month later. The glue guns I needed for the workshop were confiscated at Beijing airport because the glue stick is flammable. This made my one and only mission upon arrival in the city-state to buy new glue guns and sticks pronto. Running from air-conditioned mall to air-conditioned mall, I saw some accessories shops but no exclusive hat stores. However, taxiing past the charming


>> november 2022 | 65


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