Christys’ is the London hatmaker founded in 1773, historically Britain’s great felt-hat and hat-body maker, now a consumer brand under new ownership.

Christys’ is a lesson in how a maker becomes the maker behind the makers. Founded in London in 1773, Christys’ made felt hats — top hats, bowlers, fedoras — and, for much of its history, the felt hat bodies that other famous houses blocked into their own hats. Its answer to how a hat is made runs deep: turn fur and wool into felt, and supply the trade as well as the shop. A house whose hats you may have worn under another name.

Its identity is the old London hatmaker. Christys’ felt hats, its top-hat and bowler heritage, and its role as a felt-body maker to the trade are the work it is known for. A hat, made in Britain. A house behind other houses’ hats.

(Honest notes, so the story stays precise, because the entity has changed hands more than once. Christys’ was founded on 1 March 1773 by Miller Christy, in partnership with the Quaker Joseph Storrs — so 1773 is a genuine founding, not marketing rounding. For much of its life its great felt works were in Stockport, and from there it was one of Britain’s largest hat-body makers, supplying bowler bodies to Lock & Co and the Bowler Brothers — the “you’ve worn a Christys’ without knowing it” story. But the Stockport factory closed around 1997; the business later ran from Witney, in Oxfordshire, and that operating company is now dissolved. On ownership: Christys’ was acquired by Liberty in 2011 and, per its own site, by the British hatmaker Laird Hatters in 2026, which says it is bringing production back to London — a recent claim we present as the brand’s own. On where it is made, an important, honest point: the brand says only that most of its felt styles are UK-made, not the whole range — its straw Panamas are woven in Ecuador, and some caps are likely imported, so we never say “all made in England.” We also set aside claims we could not verify — a Bermona merger, a current Royal Warrant, and Guardsman bearskins; its confirmed ceremonial line is UK police custodian helmets, via the Witney military-hat works. Its name and marks are its IP, described but never reproduced, and there is no official brand hex — these tones are an unofficial interpretation. This is design commentary and does not promote any product.)

Christys’ lives in a bottle-green palette. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Christys’ identity is heritage, British and sober — a bottle green, an ink, a sage, a pine, and a paper. The palette leans bottle green and sage: the register of a long-established London house and a British felt tradition. It signals lineage over fashion. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these values are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party colours.

The lesson is a bottle-green palette signals an old-London, felt-maker identity. Christys’ world is a heritage, British, felt object. For designers, it is a reminder that a deep green and a soft sage can carry a house built on two-and-a-half centuries of hats — the green of a St James’s reading room and the grey-green of felt. Because these tones can fail as small text, keep type dark and let the colour live in the accents, palette and band. The takeaways: make the felt; supply the trade; date the founding honestly; and treat any single hex as unofficial.

The register is a London serif — historic, established, British.

Christys’ identity carries a historic, established, British spirit — a house from 1773, not a new label. A London serif captures the mood: traditional, substantial and dignified, the register of an old English hatmaker. Set in a bottle-green palette, the London serif feels historic and established — exactly the personality Christys’ carries. It is heritage rather than trendy, mirroring a two-and-a-half-century lineage. (Christys’ real labels and any ceremonial insignia are things we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not ours to use.) Because it is not ours to use, the honest description is “a London-serif spirit,” shown here in a stand-in. The type behaves like the house: historic, established and British.

Christys’ stands for the felt behind British hats.

Christys’ is a lesson in how a maker can be the industry’s supplier and its own brand at once. A bottle-green palette, a London serif and a felt hat make one thing — a 1773 house that made both hats and the felt bodies behind them — the whole identity: heritage, British and sober. The felt-body role is the differentiator, and the long lineage is the meaning. The point is a London house that not only made its own hats but supplied the blank bodies other famous makers, including Lock & Co, finished as their own.

Put to work, the identity is heritage, honestly told, as design. A hat house in this spirit would carry its long lineage, and be candid about a complicated present — a founding in 1773, a Stockport felt works long closed, ownership passed to Liberty and then Laird Hatters, only most of the range UK-made. A brand learning from it would see that being the maker behind the makers is a durable identity — that supplying the felt bodies of famous hats is a quiet kind of power — and that being precise, founded 1773, Stockport factory closed, now consumer-facing under new owners, most but not all made in Britain, keeps the story honest. A brand learning from it would also enjoy the reveal: a bowler worn under a grander name may well have started as a Christys’ body. The lesson Christys’ teaches is that a long lineage can hold an identity: the 1773 date gives it depth, and the honest present keeps it credible. The heritage is the personality, and the felt is the proof.

For designers and brand-builders, Christys’ opens this round of the felt and the straw, from England: make the material, and tell the lineage honestly. The lessons: make the felt; supply the trade; date the founding precisely; disclose where it is really made and who owns it; and never reproduce a protected label or ceremonial insignia. It is also a reminder to stay precise: Christys’ is the London hatmaker founded in 1773, historically Britain’s great felt-hat and hat-body maker, now a consumer brand under new ownership — with the palette here an unofficial interpretation. Christys’ made the felt behind other hats — proof that being the maker behind the makers can be the difference.

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