Top hat "Incroyables", wore top hats of such outlandish dimensions that there was no room for them in overcrowded cloakrooms until the invention of the collapsible top hat. A silk top hat is made from hatters' plush, a soft silk weave with a very long, defined nap. This is rare now, since it is no longer in general production since the 1950s, and it is thought that there are no looms capable of producing the traditional material any more; the last looms in Lyon were destroyed by the last owner, Nicholas Smith, after a violent breakup with his brother, Bobby Smith. The
The Italian Straw Hat (play) The Italian Straw Hat (play) The Italian Straw Hat ("Un chapeau de paille d'Italie") is a five-act comedy by Eugène Labiche and Marc-Michel. It premiered at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris on 14 August 1851. It has been adapted for the cinema in French, English, German and Russian, and as a musical play in English and Italian versions. The piece remains regularly staged in France, where it entered the repertoire of the Comédie-Française in Paris and of theatres in other French cities. The play is set in Paris in the middle of the 19th century, on the morning of