Adapted from a recorded conversation with the collector

Friends in France told me – because they knew I had a children’s hat collection – they told me, do you know that there is actually a hat museum in France?  They gave me the name of the hat museum and I just thought it was very interesting. So – either I sent my book to them, or I sent photos of some children’s hats in my collection - then they sent me a letter that said, if you are interested, we would be happy to exhibit your hats, because it is so different from what we have. Then they also explained to me the nature of their hat museum.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Louis XIV/XV were very particular about clothing.  Lyon was the textile center in France at the time, and many villages surrounding Lyon became manufacturers of accessories.  For example, some places specialized in making buttons, some places were dedicated to making ropes, some places were dedicated to making hats.  This place was called Chazelles-sur-Lyon, and when this place was at its most prosperous, there were 1,800 large and small factories that made hats, even small family-run operations would be considered a factory. At the time, this museum was the largest factory. After the industrial revolution, after modernization, tastes in clothing changed in France and the demand for hats began to fall, and all the hat factories there started to close, leaving only this one, which was the largest hat factory. So they converted this last factory into a hat museum.

The hats in their collection spoke of design, or provenance - they had a collection of hats worn by famous people, like Churchill or Greta Garbo, but they didn’t have much on the symbolic meanings or totems and blessings, like our Chinese hats, so from this perspective, my hats were very interesting to them.

They invited me to exhibit my hats, but they explained to me that because they are a private, relatively small institution, there was not enough budget to provide my accommodation. Then they said that because my hats are light and small, they even suggested that I should be able to travel with my hats, rather than ship them over.  For accommodation, they said their board members could take turns hosting me in their homes. In fact, I thought that was preferable!  Because then I could have the opportunity to learn about the life of real, local, French families so I agreed.  

I stayed there for about a week, 3-4 days in the house of each committee member director. They were all older, and they were all retired. I was in my fifties at the time. Anyway, breakfast, lunch and dinner were well taken care of. There was an opening, which was considered a casual event, but the only dress code was that everyone who came to the opening had to wear a hat. 

At the end of my stay, they asked if I could leave my hats; they promised they would pack them well and ship them back to me. I recalled the bamboo tripod stands they made especially for my hats, and I knew they would take good care of my hats.  They said that when they saw the photos of the hats, they felt that they didn’t have any suitable hat stands, and they thought that because my hats were Asian, and that bamboo was an Asian material, they decided to make bamboo stands, specially for my hats.  

After six months, they returned all of my hats, including the bamboo tripods.