Hat museum

About

L'Atelier-Musée du Chapeau, also known as La Chapellerie, is a French museum located in the commune of Chazelles-sur-Lyon, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Located in an old factory, this museum of France is dedicated to the valorisation of the chapelier heritage, the commune having been the French capital of the felt hat in rabbit hair.

Created in 1983 under the name of Musée du Chapeau, it became Atelier-Musée du Chapeau by moving, in 2013, to the former Fléchet factory, a building listed as a historical monument since 1999, which became a site of La Chapellerie.

In the basement, the permanent exhibition rebuilt a felt hat factory in the 1920s. All the manufacturing steps are explained thanks, among other things, to machines in operation, recovered from various factories in the commune, and demonstrations of shaping a hat. Upstairs, a gallery of more than 400 hats presents the history of the head covering from the Middle Ages to current haute couture creations[desirable secondary source].