At Haberdash Hats, we care deeply about finding the most ethical solution to creating our hats and being involved within the world of fashion. By hand making each hat ourselves, we fully embrace the qualities of “slow fashion” that we feel are helping transform the world of fashion from one of low quality, high quantity consumption to one of low consumption and high quality. Every customer we make a hat for we envision being the only hat they’ll ever need to buy - it will last for generations.

We also feel it is important to make clear that as is the reality of the high quality hat world, our hats are not considered “vegetarian” or “vegan”.

Unfortunately, the world of felt making (the materials we use to create our hats) has not changed in hundreds of years. On the one hand this is clearly because the materials are high enough quality to not see the need for innovation (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it), but on the other it means that an alternative to fur felts that offer the same durability over time does not yet exist.

We genuinely hope that one day soon, an alternative exists that we can use to offer vegetarian hats. In the mean time, however, we’ve made the choice to embrace quality over quantity, and encourage low consumption instead. We would much rather make someone 1 hat they wear forever than 10 hats because they do not last more than a year or 2. This does not fulfill our needs as far as “slow fashion”, or low consumption.

The felts we use are the highest quality available in the USA, made by a company over 100 years old. No fur is harvested via farming, and all environmental and ethics laws and regulations surrounding wild fur procurement are followed closely. Most of the men and women procuring the fur then consume the meat, or pass it along to others, reducing waste within the cycle.

We absolutely understand this doesn’t work for everyone, which is why we wish to offer full transparency on the matter. We would HATE for someone to buy a Haberdash hat only later to find out it does not meet the standards of their personal beliefs.

Hopefully an alternative to this material exists soon, at which time we are excited to create with it.

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