The Lipetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore houses a traditional black chapeau claque hat made in France. The brim of the hat is smoothly curved upwards on the sides, while the crown is slightly narrowed in the center. The crown is decorated with a ribbon made of the same material as the hat, with a bow on one side. Inside the hat, there is a golden inscription indicating the name of the manufacturer “Henry” and the addresses of the shops in Paris — “33, rue Tronchet” and “30, rue des Mathurins”. This hat belonged to Nikolay Stepanovich Popov, a native of Lipetsk who was the Soviet trade representative in France in the 1930s.
The chapeau claque is a top hat collapsible through a hidden spring system. The hat model has been known since the 1830s. Its name is derived from the French words “chapeau” meaning “hat” and “claque” meaning “tap”, which hints at its functionality. The mechanism inside the hat allows it to be folded vertically. It was also known as the “mechanical hat”, as it could be folded by hitting the top with one’s palm. Indoors, the hat was carried folded under the arm. It was especially convenient in public places like theaters, where full-sized top hats had to be left in the checkroom or placed on the floor. Such an unusual design for a collapsable hat was invented by the French hatter Antoine Gibus. This is why the hat was also known as “gibus”. The first collapsible hats began to be sold in Paris and London in the mid-1820s and reached Russia by 1829. By the mid-1840s, chapeau claque hats had become a popular fashion accessory.
In “The Book of Snobs”, William Thackeray mentioned
this fashionable element of a man’s outfit under another name “a gibus hat”,
