When in doubt about your favorite hat, don't throw it away...ask a friendly milliner if it can be saved.
One of my favorite customers brought back a superb Montecristi extra super fino from South America . These hats are very, very expensive, and finely woven to perfection by craftsmen in one tiny village in Ecuador. When you have one, you prize it. A favorite of the Duke of Windsor, Winston Churchill, and FDR, the Montecristi is as close as you can get to hat heaven for a man.
So my customer was hanging out with his ladyfriend, and her dog decided that his hat was fair game, and a new toy. So off went the dog , bounding and leaping,to the lake, hat in mouth, happy as a clam in a mudhole. Believe it or not, the weave held up, but the hat did need to be reblocked. Worry, worry worry, but no need to fret: we were able to restore the original shape, and give him his hat back, whole, and now with a happy history.
The morale of the story is this: you'd be surprised at what can (and cannot) be restored. In the vintage world I frequently inhabit, hundreds of antique , dusty, moldy, misshapen hats have passed through my hands. Truth be told, this is how I learned to make a proper couture hat.....by restoring hundreds, literally, of vintage hats to their former glory.
Bring us your hat, and we will tell you yay or nay, but don't throw it out until you know your old standby can be saved!!!
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