THE CURATED LIFE
NOTHING IS MORE iconic of the traditional English gentleman than the bowler hat—otherwise known as the Coke. The first bowler was designed by London’s royal hatmaker, Lock & Co., in the 1840s, and its origins were humble. The hat was commissioned by nobleman Edward Coke, younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester, who wanted a hat that would better protect the gamekeepers who worked on his family estate in Norfolk. (At the time, they wore top hats, which were often knocked off by low-hanging branches or by dead pheasants falling from the skies during shooting sessions.)
In August 1849, Coke (pronounced “cook”) took his problem to James Lock of Lock & Co. at the bottom of St. James’s Street, London, a company that celebrated its 340th anniversary this year. Lock’s hatmaker, Thomas Bowler, designed a hat with a low-domed crown, made out of stiffened and reinforced fur felt. The story is that when Coke returned to collect his hat he threw it on the floor and jumped on it—an effective if eccentric form of crash testing. Clearly satisfied with its hardiness, Coke equipped his gamekeepers with this felt “crash helmet,” which is still known at Lock & Co. as the Coke. Today, keepers on the Earl of Leicester’s estate are presented with a Lock Coke after their first year of service.