When the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, he was wearing a hat from Lock & Co. Hatters of London. Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde, Charlie Chaplin, Salvador Dali, Frank Sinatra and Jacqueline Kennedy were former customers. Production designer Cecil Beaton used Lock hats for the Ascot scene in the film My Fair Lady.
Lock’s first opened its doors onto St. James’ Street in London’s Mayfair section 356 years ago. (It still has those same wooden doors today.) It’s the oldest family-owned hat shop (and the 40th-oldest family business) in the world.
George I was King of England when the first James Lock started out, and titled heads have been rolling in ever since. On a wall—beside shelves of helmets that were never picked up for battles in the Crimea, the Somme or Dunkirk—is a portrait of the young Duke of Windsor looking fatuous in a floppy Lock cap. “The style was too big for him,” explains long-time employee Patrick Lamb. “Then again, all the royals have small heads. Except Diana. She was a 7¾.”
Nigel Lock Macdonald is chairman of the company, and all the shareholders are family members. Longevity has been a factor in keeping it all in the family. For instance, James Lock IV was born in 1800. In his 70s, he married a woman in her 20s whose family ran a grocery store down the road on Piccadilly. Their daughter, Amy, operated the business until 1962.
The creaking staircase leading to the second-floor Ladies Department was a favorite of author Graham Greene. In the 1920s, he lived next door, fell in love with the mistress of the house and crept up the steps for bittersweet assignations.
Lock’s stocks “off the peg” hats, but regular clients prefer those made to order to ensure hombergs and pillboxes won’t fly off with the first strong breeze. Hats are sized with Lock’s head-measuring device, the conformateur, invented in the 1850s.
The most expensive hat the shop produced was the “lethal,” steel-enforced black bowler worn by Oddjob in the film Goldfinger. It was auctioned at Christies in 1998 for £55,000 (about $97,350). Lock’s still refers to the style as a “Coke” hat. In 1850, client William Coke asked Lock’s to design a protective riding hat for him. They came up with what is now considered the classic English gentleman’s black bowler.
Business remains brisk. Retail director John Stephenson (a descendant of Lock’s partner) reports that sales are steady and the number of units sold each day has been similar for three centuries. That’s because hats remain an essential part of the English social scene. Top hats for men; sublimely ridiculous headgear for women—that’s why they invented Ascot! And what would Henley, Wimbledon and Cowes be without a boater or a Panama? This scepter’d isle is not a land where a baseball cap is considered proper attire for fishing, cycling or riding. There’s a correct hat for every activity—even smoking. That’s why there will always be a Lock’s.
Kiki Olson, a former Philadelphian, is based in London.