Creating custom country hats with UK Country.
“A hat is an expression of a woman's soul. It is something that she wears on her head, but it belongs to her heart. It is the keynote of her personality, the finishing touch that makes her look beautiful, smart, and sure of herself”
- Lilly Dache.
Emma Chapman created Uk Country last year after her search for a western hat of her own was fruitless, “I was looking for a product for myself and I couldn’t find it, other than in America. When I calculated the import costs, the overall price was extortionate, so basically, I wanted to be able to create it for myself and offer it in the UK, whilst making it as affordable and authentic as possible.”
With family from Texas who she’s never yet met, Emma explains, “I’ve always been intrigued about my heritage. I’ve loved anything to do with country ever since I was little.”
Since the creation of Uk Country, a handful of British hatmakers have cropped up, but what Emma offers is an unrivalled, unique and authentic experience, which in my opinion cannot be replicated.
As a stay at home mother, Emma shares with me how funds in the early days of her business were limited, so with her dream parked for now, she started by offering customised t-shirts as a way of building up enough funds to invest in her original plan, creating custom stiff brim and cowboy hats.
With her products being inspired by American western life and style, and seeming to be (at the time) the only hat maker of her kind in the the country, I was curious to know how she has honed her skill. “I taught myself,” she admits, something I myself can relate to with when I first started the magazine and taught myself how to design and create the files. “I’ve always been artsy,” she goes on to say, now that I can’t relate to, “the only thing I ever got an A in was art. But when it comes to the hats, it was really a learn as you go process. I picked up a hat and just did it. I’d spent hours watching TikTok’s by American hat makers, and I’ve long followed people from all over the States for inspiration. Trust me, my first hat is not perfect! Every day I am trying to improve but now I am confident in my art.” When it comes to improvement, Emma explains, “I’m constantly trying to find new things to offer customers when it comes to personalising their hats, at the moment I am looking into producing my own charms so that they can make their hat even more unique and personal to them.”
Talking of that first design, Emma casts her mind back, “it was a Highland Cow design. I posted it online and to my amazement I had six sales in the first day. I knew it was the route I wanted to go down, the business flourished from there really.”
The biggest challenge for Emma so far has been sourcing the correct machinery to achieve the result she wants. “It’s been a lot of hit and miss as to whether or not something is going to work, particularly with the branding stuff. You can’t just go out and buy a simple branding pen, it’s been a case of trial and error, finding out what works.”
As her custom hat orders took off, Emma began to look for ways to evolve and expand her business, enter: the Hat Bar. “I wanted to create a real hands on experience for others where they could come together and customise their own western inspired hat.” Through her exclusive hat creation workshops, she explains, “I’m trying to bring Texas style I love to the UK. The workshops are a space where people can come and listen to country music, surrounded by likeminded people all whilst creating their own hats.”
Having been lucky enough to take part in one of Emma’s ‘Hat Bar & Bubbly’ workshops hosted by my good friend Beth Holland of Lavender Moon in Poole, I can attest to all she mentions above. The evening was full of laughter and creative energy amongst a handful of women who started as strangers and left as new connections with country in common, some of whom went away with phone numbers and social media handles to stay in touch. With well known country music hits ringing out through the Lavender Moon shop as we all got stuck in to our craft, sipping away on bubbly and fuelling our design ideas with delicious, US inspired tater tots from the Honky Tonk Collective around the corner from the store in between hat making and browsing Beth’s current collection of western inspired products.
For me, it truly was a unique opportunity to immerse myself in creating my own hat which truly reflected my personal style. Mine, for example, pictured above, features a subtle dangling horseshoe charm and two brass rifle casings.
Hats are such statement pieces, and as Emma explains, they “really show people’s personality. I love going to workshops and seeing what everyone individually creates as it really brings out their personality. Just like you with your horse shoe charm; you have a love of horses and have horses yourself, this is now reflected in your unique hat.”
With hats the hot topic, I asked a seasoned wearer, if she had any tips for donning cowboy hats in the UK... Out in rural America, wearing a hat is so synonymous with the western lifestyle, we just don’t have the same attitude nor relationship with wearing hats here in the UK. Fedoras adorned with game bird feathers have become relatively common place at country events like, The Game Fair or horse trials throughout the year, though cowboy hats are still somewhat kept in the closet. “In Texas, wearing a cowboy hat is like putting on a pair of shoes,” Emma highlights, “here, it’s a confidence thing though it shouldn’t be.”
You can read the full article with Emma inside the carefully crafted pages of In The Country Volume Two: Edition One available to order via our online store.
