Opera Hat

The Opera Hat, is a type of collapsible top hat. It is also known as a ‘Gibus’ after an inventor.

The idea first appeared in 1812 when Thomas Francis Dollman, an English hatter, patented a design for a collapsible top hat based on an elastic steel spring.

The patent ran out in 1825 and around 1840 Antoine Gibus in France designed another spring-loaded collapsible hat that was to prove so popular it became known as a ‘Gibus’. They became known as ‘opera hats’ due to the practice of storing them in their flattened state either in the cloak rooms of opera houses or under one’s seat at the opera.