Herbert Johnson Hatters are delighted to offer our clients a fully bespoke design service. Our hatters will work with you to create something unique and special to your preferences.

Please follow our Guide below revealing and explaing in stages, the various elements and decisions involved in creating a despoke design.

We use only the very finest quality materials for our hats, brought to life through the finest traditional handcrafting skills of our hatters to produce beautiful headwear to enjoy and last you a lifetime.

All our fur felt hats are blocked by hand using wooden hat blocks.  We primarily use our sets of 'Poet' or 'Casual' open crown blocks to produce the majority of our styles which are then shaped by hand after blocking.  We offer a wide range of block shapes but our 'Poet' or 'Casual' are our most versatile and popular.

Our 'Poets' are a set of straight sided graduated blocks scaled up and down proportionally from an average open crown height of 5 1/2 inches at a size 59cm.  These blocks are sometimes referred to as a stove-pipe shape and have very little taper with an almost flat top to them.

Our 'Casuals' are also a set of straight sided graduated blocks scaled up and down proportionally from an average open crown height of 5 1/2 inches at a size 59cm.  These blocks however have a gradual taper and more rounded top shape to our Poets.

Using graduated blocks ensures that no matter what size you order, the proportions of the hat remain in balance.

Once you know what shape crown you would like for your hat, the next step is to pair it with a suitable brim shape.  Most hats come with an Even-Brim where the width from the crown is even on all sides, but you could opt for a Dimensional-Brim where the brim sides are made slightly narrower than the width at the front and back as in our Raiders models.  Once this is established you can decide whether you are happy with the classic flanged snap-brim style or whether you would prefer a flat-ironed brim or upturned brim.  The width of the brim is also a factor whether you prefer our Classic-brim (2.5"-2.75"), Stingy-brim (<2") or Wide-brim (>3"), and whether you would like your hats brim to be raw-edge or bound-edged.

We primarily choose to work with 100% rabbit or 100% beaver fur felt here at Herbert Johnson Hatters.  These stock felts are made to our exacting specifications and are very high quality.  Please be aware that the choices you have made for crown height, shape and brim style will have a bearing on the felts we can offer that will be suitable for those preferences.  Some felt options we have may not for example accommodate a tall crown or a wide brim but our hatters can advise you on all the possibilities we have available in stock or through our special order suppliers that will work for your preferences.  Our special order suppliers can offer a wider range of colours, felt-textures, weights and fur-blends but as these are ordered in on a single-hood basis, please be aware that these choices will effect the hats price significantly.

We have a wide range of ribbons, trimmings, embellishments and hat-band options available.  We can also source and special order some items which we may not ordinarily hold in stock.  

We offer a custom embossing service on most of our hat styles that include a leather sweatband. We use the debossing method whereby the letters are recessed into the material using the application of heat under pressure.

Embossing is currently offered in upper case letters only in a single font (Times New Roman). Please choose a maximum of 4 letters with additionally up to 3 dots and/or a dash (alternative embossing requests outside of these stipulations will be considered and approved wherever possible). We offer a choice of Silver foil, Gold foil or 'blind' embossing (where no foil is used and letters are simply debossed into the leather) by request.

Once your preferences and quote have all been finalised and agreed, you can place your order.  Bespoke Custom Orders can be placed via our London shop or by emailing our hatting workshop directly via enquiries-hj@herbert-johnson.co.uk.  We will then create a custom order for you manually in our system and email the invoice link to you to complete the payment process securely in our website.  Once your order payment has been received, we will process your order and add it to our production queue.  Lead times are variable for all order depending on the length of our current production queue.  Once your order reaches the head of the queue, work will commence on your order and you will receive your tracking information as soon as your order is completed and made ready to ship.  Adjustments to your order can be requested by the client at any time up until production begins.  Updates can be provided by email request throughout the process.