Jægersborggade, a cobblestone street nestled in the Copenhagen neighbourhood of Nørrebro, is one of the trendiest streets in the Danish capital. It is home to several stores that are owned by locals and boast unique concepts – making the street an asset to the city.

In the past, Jægersborggade was known as one of the sketchiest streets in Copenhagen, a place of drug trafficking and gang meetings. With time, however, it has emerged as a must-see location full of activity, always bustling with locals as well as tourists. It is lined not only with charming cafés and fine restaurants but mostly stores that focus on sustainable and handmade goods. Wilgart, a hat shop and cap-making workshop, opened its doors on Jægersborggade in 2018. The same year, the founder of the only cap-makers in Denmark, Silas Skram, partnered with Tomáš Chovan. Inspired by the innovative and niche product, and passionate about craftmanship, the two young men are dedicated to producing high-quality handmade caps that appeal because of their longevity.

The hatshop Wilgart is the only cap-maker still active in Denmark.

Tomáš, who studied product development in his home country Slovakia, says prolonging the life of a product is most important to Wilgart. By carefully choosing sustainable fabrics manufactured by companies that also follow this approach, the two produce around 500 caps a year in Copenhagen and at their second workshop on Bornholm. They are currently working on receiving a GOTS-certification, the leading textile processing standard that includes ecological and social aspects.

Bringing the production closer to the people is another aim of Wilgart. Handmade caps, Tomáš concludes, have an emotional value to the buyers as the product can be customised and therefore is unique.

Wilgart’s next-door neighbour is Ladyfingers, a jewellery shop collectively owned by four women. With their own individual style, they all create handmade pieces in their workshops scattered across Copenhagen and sell them to customers on Jægersborggade. Pernille Vinderskov, a designer for 15 years and one of the collaborators, enjoys making jewellery because she thinks people treasure the pieces for a long time. Sustainability in her work is important to her. “I buy all my material from a Danish company that offers recycled gold and silver. In that way I can trust what I am buying.”

Four Designers collaborate on Ladyfingers, creating handmade jewellery.
Pernille Vinderskov with her own pieces.

Across the road, Camilla Plums Blandede Landhandel radiates with baskets full of colourful and tasty-looking fruits. Camilla is the owner of an organic farm north of Copenhagen where she cultivates gardens and raises animals. Her shop on Jægersborggade is known for offering these local and organic products, ranging from spices and spice blends to herbs, planting seeds, fruits, vegetables, meat, and upcycled fabrics.

August Kristensen has been working at the shop since last year.

The interesting fact behind the concept of the shop and farm is that Camilla “has a love for heirloom seeds of old, protected, threatened types of fruits and vegetables,” employee August Kristensen, says. Not selling out of his principles, meaning products produced in a way he is willing to support, was important when he was looking for a job in Copenhagen.

Organic farming, however, means that products can only be produced in season, which results in large variations of customers visiting the store. August remembers, “now people are buying seeds because it’s planting season, but in Autumn sales of fruits and vegetables were good because they were coming fresh from the farm.”

Fresh fruits and vegetables from Camilla’s farm.

Copenhagen is not surprisingly considered one of the world’s most sustainable cities. As Tomáš concludes, the demand for locally and sustainably produced products has made itself visible on Jægersborggade.

As a backpacker, he fell in love with a fine cap and knocked hopefully on the door of the master behind the work. Since then, Silas Skram got the craftsmanship in his blood, and today Denmark’s only cap maker is on a mission to make the popular headgear handmade again.

“When I was 22 years old, I had a hard time finding a place to live in Copenhagen and a hard time figuring out what to do. I hitchhiked through Germany with my skateboard under my arm. At one point, I was in the city of Jena, inside a hat shop somewhere in Bavaria, where I came across a checkered baseball cap with padded lining in a quality I had never seen before. Really beautiful. Bullani was the name of the brand. I asked where it was made and was told that it was made 100 kilometres away in the town of Bamberg by a small family business.

Maybe I could learn to sew one too, I thought. Then I would have gotten something tangible out of the trip. I rushed to the library to borrow a computer and wrote an email to the Bullani factory saying I wanted to visit them and was on my way. The next day I found my way to the backyard where the workshop is located. You could hear the needles going in the sewing machines, the ribbon knife cutting fabric and wooden sticks banging cap pads against wooden blocks.

The button on the top and the silver-gray mark on the front are made of salmon skin from Iceland. A small design signature Wilgart often uses.

“Who are you,” said Herr Bullman, the master of the company. I stood there with my big backpack and skateboard and told them I wanted to learn how to sew caps. “You’re never going to learn that,” he said. “What did you imagine?” I tried to talk him into the idea. Told him that I could sew a little, that I could lend a hand and possibly iron the caps for him. We discussed it in length. “I’ve travelled all the way down through Germany to get to your workshop, so I have the dedication,” I tried. In the end, he gave me a cap, told me to think twice and if I still wanted to, I could come back a few days later and start working.

Sixpence and baseball caps are among Wilgart’s best-selling models.

I was allowed to stay with him and his wife just outside the city, and agreed to work six days a week. I was allowed to stand with the steam iron and sweated while it was high summer and the birds were chirping outside. And I eventually got to sew some caps for myself. And found out that it’s really hard. Herr Bullmann kept tearing open my caps and asking me to sew them back together properly. And asked me not to show them to anyone, or tell who had taught me to sew. After 19-20 caps and a month’s work, some friends lured me with a trip to a swimming lake further south, and then I said goodbye to Herr Bullmann and left.

When I returned home, I started an education as an accessories designer at KEA, Copenhagen Business Academy. It was mostly about what life is like for a designer who gets his things sewn somewhere far away in Asia, and didn’t really fit very well with what I wanted. But during holidays and every time we had to do an individual project or had an internship, I went to work at Bullani, and today I see Herr Bullmann as my master, even though I was not officially apprenticed to him. After two years of training, I set up a company that offered handmade caps, found a windowless basement room in the Northwest neighborhood, and bought my first industrial sewing machine. And every time I had a theoretical school assignment, I used the company as a case. In this way, I also got something out of the branding and marketing part of the education.

One day I got through to TV 2 Lorry, who came out into the basement room and made a feature about me, and it sparked demand. But it was still no more than 30-40 customers per half year. Just enough to pay the rent. So I continued to educate myself to get some tools to do business. I took a master’s degree in sustainable procurement in the textile industry and studied some business administration. Then I took a master’s degree in digital design and communication at the IT University, so I can now handle all online marketing myself.

Production takes place in the back room on Jægersborggade. But Silas Skram also has a sewing workshop with slightly larger machines on Bornholm.

It was time to do something serious about the company, and I applied for a room in Jægersborggade, where all commercial leases are owned by the cooperative association, which favors small businesses and does not rent out to, for example, chain stores. On the contrary, they are looking for people with crafts and who have something on their minds as business owners. I opened the store here in 2018, and sat in the back room sewing, but was also in charge of service. Later, Tomas, who was doing an internship with me in connection with his education as a design technologist, became a partner in the company. He is a master of precision, technically minded and good at IT. As a bachelors project, he developed an app that tells small stories about our craftsmanship and products, and which was presented through an exhibition outdoors on Jægersborggade in November 2020 called ‘The Cap in the 21st Century’.

It is always important to communicate what we do if we are to survive as a specialist business. Then people need to know what’s behind our prices, which are higher than if you buy a mass-produced cap. A baseball cap in wool costs from DKK 600 with us. Not only do you get a personal experience when you buy it because you know who made it, but you get a cap that fits your head size and where all materials have been considered – I have taken over Herr Bullmann’s supplier directory, which is worth its weight in gold when you start up in a specialized craft.
The pillow is sewn from wool from Scotland, the brim is die-cut in Germany and covered with leather from Italy, the piping also comes from Germany, and we take used sheets from the United Steam Laundries, which we dye and use for the lining. We try to be as sustainable as possible and only use materials from Europe. You can buy the caps we have in stock, but you can also choose the materials yourself and have your very own cap made.

The sweater is sewn from wool from Scotland, the brim is mended in Germany and covered with leather from Italy.
Compared to others in the clothing industry, we are actually quite local.

Most people who come down here are quite puzzled: “Do you make them yourself?” Once upon a time, there was nothing but handmade caps and tiny vendors in Copenhagen. Once upon a time, cap making was something you could get into quite easily because you could start up at home, it didn’t require much more than a sewing machine. But today we are probably the only ones in the Nordic countries. And at least the only ones in Denmark.”

“Denmark’s last cap makers” is what is written on the black chalk board in front of Tomas Chovan and Silas Skram’s shop on Jægersborggade. In the small shop, caps in all sorts of colours and materials are displayed in straight rows. The small workshop at the back of the shop may at first glance look like time has stopped, with the old-fashioned sewing machines, systematic disarray of text rolls and the scent of leather of the highest quality. However, “Wilgart” is far from being halted. In the workshop, time never stands still and every day new materials and concepts are innovated. Constantly evolving and moving forward, is actually also the case how Silas, by pure chance, discovered the cap making profession.

The water rumbles, the coffee plunger is pressed down and finally steaming, the sweltering cups find their way to the small table in the workshop. In the background, jazz tones from a small radio, and work lamps let their warm light compensate for the gray weather outside. Of course, both Tomas and Silas wear hats. They have a classic shape, but the quality is incomparable to what you otherwise see in various large chains, where the cap most likely comes from a conveyor belt in China. Silas’ cap is a classic baseball cap in a mix of alpaca and wool, with a leather visor. It is only the patina of the leather that reveals that it is not a cap of contemporary time. He received the cap from his teacher Herr Bullmann in Germany 9 years ago, just before he started his apprenticeship.

Silas grew up on Bornholm on the farm called Soldalen, which is located in the middle of the Bornholm nature. A home where the door was always open to guests and where there was always a new project in the making.

“My dad has always walked and built. We have had many Germans visit us as my father is from Germany. So I’ve lived in that world out in the woods with some guests and friends from Germany, and then it’s gotten bigger and bigger,” Silas says.

Nature kindergarten, apple orchards and circus are just examples of what is going on in entrepreneurship at Soldalen, which is constant and always evolving. But like most people who grow up in the countryside, Silas came to the city when he got a little older. At the age of 17, he moved to Copenhagen, where he tried both HF and cooking school. Soon after, he went to the even bigger city of Berlin, and when he returned home, his eyes were on an education in interior design in the Italian city of Bolzano. However, fate would not do the same, and Silas’ application was lost in the mail. After a month or two in Copenhagen without a permanent home, he started wandering around Europe in the summer of 2010.

The plan was to go further south, but in the German city of Jena, Silas came across a shop selling caps of a quality he had never seen before. Back then, he didn’t wear a cap. He was interested in skater culture and wore long dreadlocks, but there was something about the craftsmanship and handwork in his caps that caught his attention. He asked the owner where the caps came from, and it turned out to be Herr Bullmann’s company in Bamberg, about 100 km from where he was. It was at this moment that the idea of visiting the workshop and learning how to make caps began to take shape.

“I sent an email first and asked if I could come by. Once I had written the email, I started hitchhiking on the very next morning. Then they called me and asked, “Was wollen Sie? Wer sind Sie?”, and then I explained to them that I wanted to make caps,” Silas says in a tone that indicates that he knows how bizarre it must have sounded to the small German workshop.

When Silas finally met Herr Bullmann and asked him if he could do an apprenticeship, however, he received a resounding German nein in response.

After an hour of back-and-forth discussion, he finally persuaded Herr Bullmann. However, one doesn’t become a cap maker half-heartedly. Silas faced a full working week, where it was hard physical work from the early morning hours. The prize was the afternoons when Silas was allowed to experiment with making his own caps. The teacher was always honest.

Silas explains as he empties a bag onto the table. Out tumble caps, some more crooked than others, but in wild color combinations, shapes and patterns. They are all from the time at Herr Bullmann’s.

Silas goes on to say: “There was enough harsh criticism. He was a strict teacher, but you have to be. And I am happy about that to this day. Back then, I was riding a lot on the moment, and then he came over and asked if I had even thought about what to be aware of when you put one part of the cap together with another.”

Tomas and Silas are still in close contact with Herr Bullmann, and they also sell many of Herr Bullmann’s caps in the shop on Jægersborggade.

After a little over a month, Silas had to move on, then something new called for the adventurous young man, and he traveled further south. When he was back home in Denmark, however, he had not forgotten his apprenticeship with Herr Bullmann. And with that knowledge, Silas started the company and cap workshop Sigar, in 2013. It was in a small basement room in the North West, which was only open by appointment with customers. In 2016, the company changed its name to Wilgart, a contraction of Silas’ middle names Wilhelm and Gärtner.

With financial support from the LAG-Bornholm (EU support) in 2018, he was finally able to make products to order. It was difficult with the space, but with the support it became possible to open a workshop on Bornholm, and what other place would suit it better than Soldalen?

“We thought we could use the branding value of Bornholm. It is also relatively easy to find someone who would like to work with some crafts, as there are many who are good at sewing, making clay or something else. There are many people who work with crafts on Bornholm, and it takes some skill to make caps,” Silas explains

In 2017, Wilgart changed premises to a small shop and associated workshop on the attractive street Jægersborggade, where they now had fixed opening hours. In the street, specialty shops, such as Wilgart, are located side by side. Much like Soldalen on Bornholm, the street hosts many different events every year. Last week, the stores held a fashion show together on the street, where they showed each other’s products in the street’s authentic backdrops.

Tomas joined the company in September 2018. He is originally from Slovakia, but followed his girlfriend to Denmark, where he took an education as a production technologist at KEA. Since he was little, he has loved to build, and he especially played a lot with lego. His skills in machinery and software greatly benefit the company.

“I’m super happy that Tomas joined. This means that then you are two, and that is much cooler than being one. Then you can move on several things at the same time,” Silas elaborates

Tomas supplements. “What got me into the Wilgart is also that it is an innovative company. We play with some different technologies, including a laser cutter. So we think a lot about how to mix the traditional with the more modern.”

In addition to being one half of Wilgart, Tomas is now studying product development. An education that goes hand in hand with what he does in the company. One of the first projects he did for Wilgart was oak hat blocks using photogrammetry, 3D drawing, and CNC milling. They use the hat blocks to pull the caps over so that they can iron, steam and knock them according to the old and noble traditions.

“In this way, we have a root in some of the old crafts, but it is also mixed with a lot of innovation in this profession, which – in my opinion – has otherwise stood still for a really long time,” says Silas.

Although Tomas has been working with caps for a year now, it will be a long time before he will master the profession to the fullest.

Silas explains: “I came in with Herr Bullmann myself and thought I could just sew some caps. He said “no, it’s going to take you at least 5 or 8 years”. Then my answer was whether I could learn it in a month. That’s how it is when you have to learn something, the experience only comes after many years.”

A lot has happened since Silas became acquainted with the profession 9 years ago. Tomas has joined and new products have taken shape, but one thing remains constant and that is the quality of the materials they use.

“We produce in Denmark, and we buy resources from countries that are close by; Scotland, Germany, England, Belgium. We have vegetable tanned cowhide that comes from German cows that walk and graze down there. We try to keep it as close as possible in an otherwise global textile industry,” Silas says.

Organic Belgian linen, wool from Scottish sheep handwoven in the Outer Hebrides and subtle details of fish skin from Iceland. The materials are diverse, and the purchase of the materials is based on a high awareness of sustainability.

The inner lining of the caps comes from discarded DFD (unusable hotel grade bed) sheets, which Tomas and Silas upcycle:

“Many years ago, the silk lining was replaced with viscose and polyester. And viscose is so damn cheap, but it’s also just made in the shitiest way, where chemicals are thrown into this wood fiber. We want to get away from that. We are really happy with the DFD collaboration, and we see a lot of perspective in it, as it is sustainable in many ways.”

For example, wool, fabric, leather and buttons come from suppliers in Germany who are the same Herr Bullmann uses.

“Since we are here, we also keep alive some of the subcontractors to the profession that already exist. If there are no cap makers, the suppliers to the caps die too,” Silas elaborates.

The thoroughness and Wilgart’s code of values stand in opposition to large parts of the fashion industry.

“We have a wide range of parameters that 95% of the fashion industry does not follow. So somehow we’re kind of in our own camp in this. Some of the things that we do, but that the majority of industry does not, is that we produce in Denmark. It’s absolutely exceptional,” Silas says with enthusiasm in his voice.

From idea to final cap takes a long time, and both Tomas and Silas find inspiration in many different time periods. Right now, it’s caps from the 1920s worn by the characters in the hit series Peaky Blinders that are popular. Although the process is time-consuming, Silas and Tomas do not stop developing and thinking in new ways. Both vegan leather, a DIY (Do It Yourself) cap kit and a cap cleaning set are on the drawing board. Although Herr Bullmann was a strict teacher, Silas and Tomas do things their own way. A way that is constantly evolving and taking different shapes in new caps and products.

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.