Would the Real Hat Box, Please Stand Up?

A fancy “derby” hat begs for special transportation when boarding a plane for a trip to a horse race. “My large cardboard box home in your closet, just won’t cut it for an airplane ride”, says The Hat.

Borrowed from Pinterest

Excitement built today as the quest began for the perfect hat box to transport my large, fancy top piece to Kentucky and opening day at Keeneland ….  The search was way more difficult than expected, but with the trusty internet – anything is possible, right?  After pursuing more than a couple online derby hat stores and not finding much, a Google search led to an interesting, hour-plus long pursuit. While hat retailers abound – selling everything from top hats, fedoras, bowlers, baseball caps, fancy feather adorned showpieces and fascinators – – actual hat boxes, or containers able to transport a hat with some size and opulence are way more difficult to find.

A “Hat Box” search led to lots of beautiful pictures and examples of artsy, vintage and attractive options for smaller hat storage on several websites.  Pinterest and Etsy offered exciting, lush hatbox images – but all unfortunately led to dead ends or to boxes that were either too small or too flimsy to do the travel job.

Samsonite Vintage 1950’s (Etsy)

So, the question is, how do people travel with fancy hats?  Short of wearing a fancy hat on your head en voyage or shipping it to your destination in advance, how do these valuable adornments get to race tracks around the world with feathers, bows and ribbons intact? A search for “Hat Shipping” led to nothing useful, although I am certain that someone would do this for a price…

Ebay and Amazon proved to offer a different avenue of options.  In addition to fancy cardboard types, a variety of vintage hat “suitcases” popped up with people selling relics of travel from the past.

American Tourister print advertising 1960’s.

Finally…. a hat box “suitcase”.  Back in the 1940’s-1960’s, Samsonite, American Tourister and a few other brands offered fashionable, sturdy hat “suitcases” – many with small lingerie compartments – for women looking for safe and convenient portability for their hats while traveling.  With the decline of hat wear, these suitcases have become difficult to find – but there are vintage pieces available.

The hat suitcase that has caught my fancy (and that could actually hold my largest hat) is American Tourister’s 20″ round hat case (also referred to as a “train” case) from the 1960’s.  Vintage advertising showcases this as a very glam addition to any suitcase ensemble.  Very “Mad Men” -ish!

Pinterest – I had the top two cases in purple.

This “find” also brought back a blast from my past as my first suitcase was a beautiful lavender American Tourister two-piece overnight-size suitcase and make-up travel case given to me as a gift from my Dad before I graduated from high school. Wish I still had them!

Ebay – Already sold 😦

So, I’ve narrowed my quest and with a little more searching hope to find my dear Hat a comfortable and safe “seat” for the upcoming plane ride….this vintage red case has me thinking … now that’s a REAL hat box!