2006 Dressage at Devon

Giving Birth to the Headwear of the Royals

Boy de Winter, Hat maker to the Dutch Royal Family, will be demonstrating how he creates his “babies” at Dressage at Devon Horse Show September 26th through October 1st

“These hats are my babies,” confesses H.W. “Boy” de Winter. “When they leave, they are still a part of me.” And when they leave, they go to every corner of the globe. De Winter is known the world over for his fine hats. When Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands delivers her state of the Union speech, she wears one of his hats. English and Dutch Royals, and members of the Comedie Francais also favor his headwear. In the past quarter century, de Winter’s hats have been the favorite of top dressage riders, and it’s not unusual for every rider receiving a medal on the Olympic podium to be wearing one of his creations. De Winter will be fitting, creating, shaping, shining and selling his hats at the 32nd Dressage at Devon Horse Show, Tuesday, September 26th through Sunday, October 1st at the Devon Horse Show Grounds in Devon, PA.

Like the three generations before him, de Winter wears a leather apron, uses antique tools and employs centuries old methods to create his hats. The family tradition began with his great-grandfather, who supplied top hats for funerals and weddings. When de Winter was learning the trade, he traveled to France to learn how to make the official two and three-cornered hats, to England for the venerable bowler, to Germany for the collapsible hat favored by opera-goers and, in Holland, he refined the top hat. While the world donned fewer and fewer hats, hatmakers dwindled away, and de Winter became one of a kind—the only person in the world, he believes, to make classic hats by hand. His methods are captured in a book about Dutch textile crafts, and he has given his tools to museums.

Dressage is an equestrian sport that is growing as fast as is the demand for a de Winter top hat. The word Dressage is derived form the French verb "dresser", which simply means "to train." Often described as ballet on horseback or poetry in motion, dressage challenges horse and rider to strive for even greater levels of precision and harmony. It has been an Olympic sport since 1912.

De Winter began to make top hats, part of the requisite attire for dressage competition at the international level, a quarter century ago. Today dressage hats make up 80% of the 20 or so hats a month that L’Hiver, de Winter’s company, crafts. They have been worn in six Olympics. “In Athens,” he says with modesty, “14 riders were wearing my hats.”

“It takes about 14 hours of work to make one hat,” de Winter explains, and, with the setting and drying, requires eight weeks for delivery. The complicated process employs a 19th century wooden hat maker’s form for the head shape, a tape for the size, and calipers to calibrate width and depth. De Winter asks his customer how they wear their hair, and style preferences. The choices are subtle: the width of the brim, the height of the crown, the thickness of the ribbon. While black used to be the only option, now de Winter is making dressage hats in midnight blue, green, brown and gray, too.

The hat is constructed of flannel and linen, shaped and hardened through several steps of gluing, shellacking, ironing and drying. Silk from China, woven for L’Hiver in Zurich, is sewn for the outer layer by Wilhelmien. The process is so delicate, that de Winter ruins one hat in ten, and Boy Jr., who has been working with him for 18 years, is just beginning to execute certain steps.

Boy de Winter lives and works in Uden, Holland, with his wife Wilhelmien and Boy Jr., the fifth generation.

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