Some customers in our cap shop and ask in which shelves the hats are on? Our answer is that we are just cap makers and not also hatters. Read more about the difference between cap makers and hat makers here

But now we can present a new collaboration with Denmark’s oldest hat company, which still makes handmade hats here in Denmark. Stig Andersen is a true hat craftsman, trained by his father in the company Andersen & Berner.

We offer two classic models: the Fedora hat and the classic Bogart hat with black bow and clean-cut edge. In addition, we sell a luxury hat in beaver felt, which often has to be ordered in advance. All our hats are handmade in Denmark.

Since 1946, when Stig Andersen’s father set up the company with his friend Berner, hats have been made in a backyard in Nørrebro in Copenhagen. After a number of years, however, Berner left the company, put his hat on the shelf, and instead bought a tavern, which he ran for many years. Mr. Andersen, on the other hand, continued to make hats, and in 1983 Stig Andersen, his son, took over the hat factory in Nørrebro.

Due to the gentrification of the district, and the associated urban renewal and rent increases, the factory has been forced to move out of Nørrebro, and has been relocated in Helsinge, North Zealand. Read more in our report on Danish headwear, on the pageHatters and Milliners in Copenhagen in 2019.

We are proud that our custom made hats in Wilgart’s hat shop are made of the absolute best material for hats, namely with beaver hair. Moreover, the beaver felt hat is made only according to the measurements and preferences of the customer. We start with the classic Fedora hat, which is available in two classic colors, namely: black and gray.

But you can also choose between 8-10 different hat bands. On some models it is possible to order several different hat bands that you can switch between them. Try putting together your hat here.

Delivery time for a personal luxury hat from Wilgart is 8-10 weeks. The beaver felt fedora comes in a nice hat box, accompanied by a hat brush from Wilgart. In addition, you can choose a hat pin with a piece of real Bornholm granite, and a pair of cufflinks in a matching shade.

In a good hat shop, one makes sure to consider everything hat related. Therefore, Wilgart has over the years developed a number of accessories for both hats and caps. In the collection you will find various tools such as hats and cap brushes, boxes for storage, hat bands, hatpins and specially custom-made hat hooks for wall-mounted hat storage.

We have also developed a dedicated hat shelf, as this furniture is hard to find, and disappeared from our wardrobes since before the hat was impossible to opt out, and nowadays is a personal option. Until the hat shelf is in place, you can use our hats and cap hooks, which we have made on Bornholm especially for you.

Wilgart has started a collaboration with RHANDERS on a very special baseball cap. The cap is developed and crafted in collaboration with RHANDERS, who share our desire to promote premium Danish design and craftsmanship that is made to last. If you want one of these unique caps, they can be purchased on RHANDER’s website and in their stores.

The black wool is woven in Germany, and the lining of the cap is of the finest silk. The brim is covered with the soft and noble glove leather from Rhanders (formerly Randers Glove Factory).

The Baseball cap from Wilgart is handmade in Denmark. The visors for the cap are laser cut on our own laser cutter on Bornholm, just as the fine silk and soft wool are cut at our cap maker workshop on Soldalen, Bornholm.

What is a cap and what is a hat?

Very often hats are confused with caps and vice versa. I often get to call a hat for a hat, a cap for a cap, but also allow a hat for a cap, and say cap to a hat! Thus reinforcing the cluttered relationship between a living language contrary to the professional terms of the industry. However, when explaining why Wilgart is the last capmaker up North in Scandinavia, then the distinction between hatmakers and capmakers comes sharply worded, just like my master Herr Bullmann used to say it.

“Wir sind Mützenmacher”

We are capmakers, he explains me. Everything we make is from woven materials, cut by a tailor’s scissor and sewn together on a sewing machine. Hatmakers, they work mostly with felt, which is then steamed and pressed into shape. Both categories apply to making headgear, but the artisanship is anything alike.

“Ich bin ein Mützenmacher” Herr Bullmann said to his apprentice, with a severe voice pitch and sincere pride. And from that day, Wilgart understood the distinction.

Danish milliners society

Being a capmaker myself, this divide has proven very handy. First, I get to call myself the last capmaker in the North, which is true since I don’t know anybody else here specialized in cap headgear. In addition, I get to meet with a creative and inspiring little community of hatmakers and milliners in Copenhagen: Danish milliners and hatmakers where the exclusiveness of my craftsmanship gives me a special status from the rest of the group. A position with inbound privileges and drawbacks.

Some of the great milliners in Copenhagen are experimenting with capmaking, and therefore have a couple of caps in their portfolio. However, when looking at the process and methods used to making those pieces, I get the feeling inside of not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Not meant in a taunting way, but the workarounds when making those, de facto beautiful and admirable headpieces, just have so much of a DIY (Do-it-yourself) feeling to them. Which in the end proves that humans – and hatters in particular – are very creative and skilled people, able to work out finished goods in areas that detours their original craft.

My perspective

I always try to spread knowledge of the working methods I experienced through my apprenticeship at the small batch manufacturing workshop in Germany where Herr Bullmann taught me cap making. In doing so, most members of the hatmaker-group who discover these insights, explain some of the frustration  experienced in the cumbersome process they went through when making caps. Sharing this knowledge about an old craft like capmaking keeps the craft alive and maintains a specific know-how from getting lost in history. Simultaneously, I believe there could be a lot more capmakers up and running, and if you´re eager to learn an old craft, then let me know prompt! I might consider getting an apprentice myself. When thinking about my masters’ stern speech about capmakers vs. hatmakers I can extract one essential overall message, which is:
Good capmakers are awesome. Let us be more!

Handmade Danish Headwear

Since 2013, Danish men have been able to have their very own unique cap sewn by Silas Gärtner, who is the only Danish cap maker. The first few years were only by appointment, but since 2017 Wilgart, as the company is called, has had a shop and workshop in the hip Jægersborggade in Nørrebro.

Our Customers

“The store attracts quite a few customers. There are also quite a few tourists, but we also have many customers who come specifically to have their very own unique and numbered cap sewn,” explains Silas Gärtner, owner and capmaker in Wilgart.

“Customers want the sensory experience of seeing and feeling the materials when choosing a cap. I give them that in the store, when we talk together about exactly how the cap should look and ‘feel’,” Silas Gärtner explains.

Silas says he primarily has two types of customers; men over forty who care about the quality and tradition of the craft, and for whom it matters that the cap is sewn in Denmark. The second type is slightly younger men between 25 and 35. For them, it is crucial that they can help design the cap themselves, and thus get their very own unique cap, which is the only one-of-a-kind model sewn. And then there is actually a third group as well; women who are tired of seeing their husbands walking around with a promotional cap from the local Q8 gas station.

“What all customers get here with us is a cap that has a long life and durability. Unfortunately, this is not common today, and many people do not actually understand what it means to buy a durable product. They have become accustomed to the fact that what we buy quickly breaks. But it’s not natural for the buttons to fall off your shirt after four times in the washing machine. Or that the cap bleaches completely after only one summer on the head. Quite the opposite,” Silas says.

“I think it’s related to the fact that the production has disappeared. This means that people have lost their understanding of what lies behind sewing, for example, a cap,” says Silas.

Something else that comes with the handmade quality product is the choices that the craftsman makes in relation to materials and production method. And in this way, a ‘modern’ concept such as sustainability has actually always been part of the very nature of craftsmanship.

“I think a lot about sustainability in our production. When customers buy a cap that they have decided for themselves how to look, they want to take better care of it and not just replace it next year. That is one aspect of sustainability. But it’s also something I think about when we buy materials and fabrics,” Silas says and
cites a number of examples.

“Personally, I love Harris Tweed, for example, which is produced in Scotland from Scottish and English wool. We buy our leather in Germany from German cows – and it is also tanned in rhubarb extract rather than, for example. Chrome. We have also just started a new project where we recycle sheets from the De Forenede Dampvaskerier (DFD) in the lining of the caps. And then we use fish skin, which is a natural by-product that would otherwise be thrown away.”

Although the actual sewing of a cap is still done by hand on a good old-fashioned sewing machine, Wilgart has invested in other machines that can support the production. Last year, Silas bought a band knife cutting machine from a tailoring shop on Amager, but the company also has a laser cutter. All the machines are assembled in Wilgart’s new workshop on Bornholm.

“With our laser cutter, we can constantly adapt and optimize our models, and with the large band knife cutting machine, I can cut all the parts for the caps with very great precision. This is crucial when I have to sew a quality cap,” Silas Gärtner concludes.

Andersen & Berner supplies hats to large Danish design companies, and although he has just produced 100 hats for Henrik Vibskov, he believes that the hat as a fashion phenomenon has weakened. “I sense that the hat on a fashion level dips a little, not least because many people buy some cheap hat produced in the south” But he does not doubt that the hat among ordinary people is still popular and upward.

Now Stig is looking for just the right place for his workshop. In the meantime, he works from a room in Helsinge, because the hats have to be made anyway. Fortunately, Stig is in good spirits regarding the re-location. “You can’t be negative, you can’t do that in this industry,” he says, and expects to find the right place to run the business from before the end of the year. Stig also believes that if it were decided from a political point of view that craftsmanship was a key issue for the Danes’ self-understanding, it would be advantageous to organize an entire district for artists and craft trades, where rents were low and creativity high.

Another stronghold for Danish milliners is the Royal Danish Theatre’s Hatte- & Blomsterværksted. This is the only place in the country which offers an apprenticeship for new students in the milliner /hat subject. This January, 6 people work diligently in the workshop. In addition to the 4 milliners Gitte, Katrin, Frida and Helene, a new student Lærke has just started, together with an intern in cutting from Gothenburg, Sweden.

The magical workshop in the theatre’s secret chambers, located at the back of the building on Kongens Nytorv, is filled with feathers, old sewing machines, hat pads and buttons. For the past 6 months, the team has been working on creating hats for the performance Hocus Pocus, as well as the ballet Cinderella, which will run at the theater this spring.

Susanne Juul, owner of the hat shop on Store Kongensgade is a trained milliner and tailor. She makes hats according to the client’s measurements. The style is sublime and simple, and the hats are made of exquisite materials such as straw, wool, felt, fur and velour. Susanne was trained by hatter Vagn in Copenhagen. In recent years, she experiences an increasing awareness of the hat among the average Dane: “For the past two seasons, I have also sold hats for confirmations!”

Listen to a podcast radio show produced by Den 2. Radio about her craft here:

As the latest in the string of players in the Danish hat market, we find Frida Barfod, who has just graduated as a milliner. During her apprenticeship, she made hats, jewellery and masks for ballet dancers, opera singers and actors. Currently, Frida is present at an exhibition of hats at La Glace Konditori, which every year in connection with fashion week, makes cakes that thematically fit the Danish fashion discourse. The exhibition can be seen until 8. March 2019.

In the spring, Frida plans to establish her own workshop and work freelance for clients, and with her own creative collections of headwear.

At the beautiful Moltkes Palace in Copenhagen, the Laugenes Show is held every year since 2010. Participants from Danish Milliners, together with a number of other guilds, showcase unique Danish craftsmanship at its best. Below are pictures of hats from Mathilde Førster & Frida Bang for the Laugenes Show.

At Wilgart, we definitely believe that in the last 10-20 years there has been a tendency towards a minor renaissance in the use of hats for everyday life, holidays and parties. Caps are popular and many people visit our shop in Jægersborggade, to get their very own, personal and one-of-a-kind cap. Milliner Susanne Juul also sees the trend among ordinary Danes quite clearly: “There is not a little, but a lot of recovery in the use of hats. This can be seen, among other things, in the fact that clothing stores have now also started selling hats.”

Hornskov Copenhagen manufactures and sells unique handmade hats. From the workshop in Christianshavn, Peter Hornskov sews classic hats for customers from all over the world.
“It went well,” says Peter Hornskov, who in 2018 gained international attention for the second time with a successful campaign on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Peter believes that the effect was greater at Hornskov’s first campaign three years earlier, because as he says: “The blocks and a lot of the tools that we still use today, is something we got funded by the first campaign back in 2015”
With the new campaign, Hornskov has spread the name and knowledge of handmade Danish hats, which are ordered according to the customer’s own wishes and needs. The many hatters, capmakers and milliners in this country underline how Copenhagen is a true ‘town of headwear’!
Below is the video from Hornskov’s first campaign on Kickstarter in 2015.

The latest news from Hattedanmark is how Mathilde Førster, after several years of experience as a milliner, has this week announced that she is establishing a new and larger showroom and workshop in Østerbro. The address is Vennemindevej 45D, 2100 Østerbro. The workshop is open by appointment. See contact information below under sources. Congratulations!

One-piece crown is an old classic cap. It was especially popular with men in 1910s, 20s, and 30s. Back then, it was both practical as it helped keep the head warm, and was formal and stylish. The one-piece crown cap consists of a single piece of fabric, hence the name one-piece. It is sewn together in a way that creates tips in a crown-shaped structure. From a distance, it looks like a very wide variant of a flatcap, but it is constructed fundamentally differently.

It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship that, due to changing trends, has unfortunately been left behind. Today, only a few cap makers such as American Monsivais from LA ⁷, and Wilgart in Copenhagen still produce the cap. We do this because we believe it has a beautiful and special appearance. It is almost a little extravagant due to its volume and the large material consumption.

The hat is traditional, and elegant. The fabric is of good quality and has a simplicity about it that makes the One-Piece-Crown perfect for the modern man. Accompanied by a tweed suit, you will automatically appear as a historically insightful man. The style is also popular among women. Read also: New Old Style – The One Piece Crown

The company’s growth strategy

With the workshop on Bornholm, we are now able to produce our own caps locally, but production and sales must go hand in hand. Therefore, our strategy is that with the past year’s main focus on production, next year’s most important activity will be concentrated on sales. In relation to Bornholm, the goal for 2019 is to produce 800 caps and hats. Compared to 2018, where we have produced and sold approx. 200 pieces, this is four times the amount. We believe this is a realistic goal and look forward to getting started.

Sale of caps from Denmark

How can you help support good craftsmanship, Danish production and high quality? With three new initiatives, we will disseminate Danish-produced headgear:

1. New collaborations – We are looking for companies with distribution and sales networks in Denmark who want to cooperate.
2. We are planning a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. In this regard, we are extremely excited for everyone who wants to share the campaign. This is an important prerequisite for online success.
3. We will open a new sales point on Bornholm near the production, where individual orders can also be processed. The plan is for it to be open during the summer season, but terms and opening hours have not yet been decided.

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