What is the average hat size for men?

The average men's hat size in the UK is 59 cm, typically a size Large. Measuring your head ensures the most accurate fit.

How do I measure my head for a hat?

Use a soft tape measure and measure around your head just above the ears and across the forehead. Keep the tape level and snug to determine your size in centimetres.

A flat cap is a rounded cap with a small stiff brim at the front, traditionally associated with British heritage style.

What is the difference between a fedora and a trilby?

A fedora typically has a wider brim and softer shape, while a trilby features a shorter brim and a taller crown, offering a sleeker silhouette.

Can a felt hat get wet?

Felt hats are naturally water-resistant but should not be exposed to heavy rain for extended periods. Allow them to dry naturally at room temperature.

Do you offer in-store collection?

Yes, orders can be collected from our London, Cambridge, or Oxford stores within 3-5 working days.

How a Modern British Hatmaker Earned Its Place on Peaky Blinders

May 22, 2026

CRAFT & HERITAGE

We didn't inherit a legacy. We built one — stitch by stitch, cap by cap, in a Hertfordshire workshop. Here is the story of how that work put us on one of the biggest shows in television history.

LAIRD HATTERS · MAY 2026 · 6 MIN READ

The cap that sits on your head when you walk into a room tells people something before you have said a word. Thomas Shelby understood this. So did the BBC's costume team when they were building the visual world of Peaky Blinders - and so, it turned out, did we. When the production of Season 5 needed caps that were genuinely handmade in Britain, built to last, and capable of standing up to the scrutiny of one of the most design-conscious dramas on television, they came to Laird Hatters.

We did not have 250 years of history to offer them. Laird Hatters was founded in 2009, by Zofia and Alex who started the company in London, with Alex as our principal hatmaker. What we had instead was something simpler and harder to fake: the quality of what was coming out of our Hertfordshire workshop every single day. That was enough.

COMMISSIONED FORPeaky Blinders · BBC · Laird Hatters’ bakerboy caps, handcrafted in Hertfordshire

What the Show Actually Needed

Peaky Blinders was never a drama that did things halfway. From the first season, its visual language was deliberate and precise — the three-piece suits, the long overcoats, the silhouettes built from real working-class British clothing of the 1920s, not theatrical approximations of it. The caps worn by the Shelby family had to look right on camera, hold their shape under studio lights, survive the rigours of a professional production, and feel authentic to anyone who knew what a real British bakerboy cap was supposed to look and feel like.

Mass-produced costume pieces, the kind churned out in volume overseas, were not going to pass that test. What was needed was a cap made by someone who actually knew how to make one. That meant handcut panels, hand-assembly, proper lining, a construction built around the specific proportions of the eight-panel bakerboy that had defined working-class British headwear since the 1890s. It meant a British workshop with real craftspeople and the skill to execute it consistently.

We had been making this exact cap, in this exact way, before the show was famous. What changed was that the world caught up with what we already knew how to do.

LAIRD HATTERS, HERTFORDSHIRE

The Cap That Was Always There

The bakerboy cap, also called a newsboy cap, an eight-panel, Gatsby, Redford, a Shelby cap, has a history that stretches back to Victorian Britain. It was the everyday headwear of newspaper boys, factory workers, dockworkers, market traders: anyone who needed something warm, hard-wearing, and cheap enough to replace. Its eight panels, stitched together with a button at the crown and a short, stiffened peak, gave it a rounded, generous silhouette entirely different from a flat cap's single-piece construction.

By the time Peaky Blinders arrived on BBC Two in 2013, the cap had been out of mass fashion for decades. But it had never been out of production at Laird. We had been making the eight-panel bakerboy since our earliest days, in British wool, in Harris Tweed, in linen and cotton, because it is simply one of the finest cap constructions ever designed. Functional, characterful, endlessly versatile. The kind of thing that looks better with age.

When the show made the Shelby silhouette famous, the world discovered something Laird Hatters already knew. And when Season 5 needed caps made by people who genuinely understood what they were building, the answer was in Hertfordshire.

How We Make a Cap: The Laird Method

Every cap that leaves our Hertfordshire workshop is made by hand, from fabric selection through to the final stitch. There is no shortcut in this process that does not show up in the finished piece - which is precisely why we do not take any. This is what goes into a Laird bakerboy cap:

Cloth selection

We source the finest British and Scottish fabrics - from Orb-certified Harris Tweed, handwoven on the Outer Hebrides, to premium British wools, linens, and cashmere blends. The fabric defines the character of the finished cap; we select each cloth individually.

Hand-cutting the panels

Each of the eight panels is hand-cut to our templates, ensuring precise shape and a consistent silhouette across every cap. Machine-cutting cannot replicate the accuracy a skilled hand brings to cloth with natural texture and grain.

Assembly and stitching

The panels are hand-assembled and stitched together, the peak shaped and attached, the button set at the crown. This is where the cap takes its form — and where the skill of our craftspeople is most visible in the finished piece.

Lining and finishing

Every Laird cap is fully lined — often in satin — with a leather or grosgrain sweatband. These are not afterthoughts. They determine how the cap sits, how it breathes, and how well it ages over the years of wear it is built to handle.

Final inspection

Every cap is checked by hand before it leaves the workshop. Shape, stitching, lining, peak - each element reviewed before the cap earns its Laird label. We produce in small batches for a reason: attention at this stage is non-negotiable.

What the Peaky Blinders Commission Proved

Being commissioned for Peaky Blinders Season 5 was not simply a commercial arrangement. It was a form of validation that matters in the craft world more than any award or press coverage: a major production, with access to every hatmaker in Britain, chose us because of what we make and how we make it. That is a distinction that does not fade.

It also placed Laird in a specific company. Across the seasons of Peaky Blinders, the production turned to British hatmakers for the Shelby family's headwear - because no other kind of cap was going to survive scrutiny on that show. To be among them, as a workshop founded in 2009 by two people who met at university and shared a passion for British headwear, is something we carry into every cap we make.

ON THE LAIRD APPROACH TO CRAFT

We do not make hats for a season. We make them for decades. Every cap that leaves our Hertfordshire workshop is built from materials chosen to age well and assembled by craftspeople who understand that the piece will outlast the trend that inspired it.

Should your cap ever need attention - a re-block, a new lining, a restored peak - our workshop is here. A Laird cap is not a purchase. It is the beginning of something you keep.

The Thomas: Completing the Circle

When Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man arrived on Netflix in 2026 - the film that brings Cillian Murphy back as Thomas Shelby for the final chapter - Laird Hatters responded with something that felt like the natural conclusion to over a decade of making the cap that the show made famous. The Thomas is our limited edition collector's cap: handcrafted in genuine Orb-certified Harris Tweed, in our Hertfordshire workshop, with a specially woven collector's label drawn from the Thomas image created for the film.

It arrives in a bespoke black presentation box - The Thomas portrait printed on the lid - and is strictly limited. Once this edition sells out, it will not be reproduced. The label, the box, and the provenance behind it are specific to this moment.

For a company that began fifteen years ago with a shared love of British headwear and a workroom in Hertfordshire, it is a cap that means something. The show that changed how the world sees the bakerboy cap. The hatmaker that earned its place on that show by making bakerboy caps the right way. And now, a collector's piece that brings those two things together in a single, handmade, Harris Tweed object.

By order of Laird Hatters.

LIMITED EDITION · 2026

The Thomas

Harris Tweed. Woven collector's label. Bespoke black presentation box. Handmade in Hertfordshire. Strictly limited — will not be restocked.

SHOP THE THOMAS £155 · FREE UK DELIVERY

· · ·

LAIRD HATTERS · EST. 2009 · HANDMADE IN HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

Peaky BlindersThomas ShelbyHarris TweedThe Immortal ManBritish CraftBakerboy CapCollectors EditionSeason 5

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