Over the summer we received a request to send images of our 1930s hats to the wardrobe department for a feature filming in New York City.  We’re always happy to oblige – Ian’s collection of hats is world-class, but they don’t get as many chances to shine as we’d like.

The Studio, which is kept dark and covered to protect the collection, houses veritable treasures in plain brown wrappers.

While we’re always adding to the galleries on this website, when a designer asks for images, we take clear, bright shots and get them out as quickly as possible, sent according to their preference, which may be via Imgur…

or Dropbox…

or even Pinterest.

When taking pictures, we may as well do it well, so we capture the hats from every angle, so as to provide as much detail as a designer would like to see.

This serves us so well. Eventually the images will end up collaged and in the galleries on this website, and they’re well-labelled and easy to send to designers for future requests.

Adding the inventory numbers and measurements is no trouble, though most designers simply send us screen grabs of the items they’d like us to pull and send, and Ian takes care that we only rent wearable sizes (or note carefully if, say, hats are smaller than 22″.)

Of course, the same goes for clothing.

Once the designer makes their choices, we carefully package the items, and provide detailed inventory lists. At least 80% of our stock has inventory numbers and clear labels for ease of checking off items upon arrival, and for returning them when it’s time to wrap things up.

Our paperwork is designed to allow for easy border crossings, and we’re experienced at shipping world-wide.

In fact, it feels really good to tick those boxes, copy those pages for the manifests, and then track the boxes and e-crates as they make their way all over the world.

This shipment left us on July 13, and made its way home yesterday.  In it was a simple hat that’s always been a good worker for us.

This hat is known to us as 2-13-12-1-76, and it’s simple, but lovely. It’s felt, in a midnight navy colour, with a grosgrain ribbon binding and trim, and a simple twist of a bow. It’s all in the shape, and the angles, and it’s extremely face-flattering.

Now, we know which film this was used in and that’s exciting enough. And certain stars in it are certainly getting a lot of buzz. It’s nice enough that many our stock items travel far and do amazing things; it’s wonderful when we catch them on screen. But there’s always an increased level of pride and excitement when something of ours ends up on a principal character.

So, we’re not going to blurt it out now, but lets just say that we’re going to be looking carefully to see this hat on a certain star, after catching her name below this Wardrobe Department notation on this label, which was left tucked inside the hat band.

Let us know if you guess who it is, but we’ll happily reveal this in 2016, upon the film’s release.  After all, we’re discreet, even when we haven’t signed a confidentiality agreement. It’s just another part of what we do.