Hat box collapsible version for evenings, known as a gibus. They might also include storage space for items such as a hat brush. Designs became quite large during the Victorian era. A letter to "The Times" in 1844 warned travellers that Blackwall Railway's porters had charged a 1d to carry a hat box onto the train and a further 6d for transporting it to the London terminus, with the traveller himself paying only 4d for the journey. He recommended that travellers with luggage should go by steamboat. While traditionally hat boxes are circular or square in shape, some versions may follow the
Top hat men's hat. The characteristic snapping sound heard upon opening a gibus suggested a third name, the "chapeau claque", "claque" being the French word for "slap". Until World War I the top hat was maintained as a standard item of formal outdoor wear by upper-class males for both daytime and evening usage. Considerations of convenience and expense meant however that it was increasingly superseded by soft hats for ordinary wear. By the end of World War II, it had become a comparative rarity, though it continued to be worn regularly in certain roles. In Britain these included holders of various positions