When Tatler photographer Hubert Cecil arrived at the Oliver Brown Royal Ascot preparations pop-up at the Epsom Derby, he brought with him a top hat that Kristian Ferner Robson, founder of Oliver Brown, reckoned could be a hundred years old. The hat had come down to Cecil from his father, who had kept it in storage for more than a decade. ‘It has a certain smell,’ Cecil admitted, warning bystanders not to stand too close. It needed attention. It got it.
The pop-up occupied a corner of the Epsom racecourse dressed with a blooming archway of scented cream flowers and a giant top hat rendered in moss. Robson and his team were offering a complimentary top hat cleaning service to racetrack revellers, and a steady stream of well-heeled men arrived clutching accessories in various states of neglect. Between the tidying up, there were silk ties and smart waistcoats to admire. It was a civilised interlude before the main event of Royal Ascot the following week.
The man behind the world’s biggest top hat collection
Robson inspected Cecil’s hat closely and declared it had a ‘lovely’ character. The slightly kinked brim, he noted, appeared shaped to accommodate the large camera Cecil is rarely without. For a hat that had spent years in storage, it was doing rather well.
That verdict carries some weight. According to Oliver Brown London, Robson’s personal top hat collection numbers over 1,000 hats, widely regarded as the largest in the world. What began as a single buy-and-sell trade during his teenage years became a lifelong pursuit of craftsmanship, rarity and provenance. The collection is now split across four shops, with around 300 hats in each, as Oliver Brown London on YouTube explains. Running a hand over Cecil’s brim, one imagines he has seen almost every variation the form allows.
Among the rarest are silk top hats. Robson has noted that silk top hats have not been made for 80 years, which gives the older pieces in his collection, and in the wardrobes of men like Cecil, a quality that cannot simply be ordered new. The manufacturing knowledge, the materials and the workshops are largely gone. What survives does so through inheritance, careful storage and the occasional complimentary clean at an Epsom pop-up.
Oliver Brown Royal Ascot style and the house’s Chelsa roots
Oliver Brown opened as a shop in Chelsea in 2000, and the brand has spent the years since building a reputation for the kind of tailoring that suits the Royal Enclosure as naturally as it does a country house wedding. The appeal goes well beyond top hats. Modern cuts sit alongside classic silhouettes, and the range of Ascot-ready tailoring balances the house’s heritage with an awareness that the gentlemen wearing it would like to look current as well as correct.
‘At Oliver Brown, we believe that true style is about more than just clothing; it’s about creating an experience,’ Robson has previously said. ‘Every piece we craft tells a story, empowering our customers to express their individuality. We are dedicated to celebrating British tailoring while embracing modernity, making every visit to our stores feel like coming home.’
That philosophy extends naturally to the hat cleaning service. A top hat, however ancient and fragrant, is not merely an accessory at Royal Ascot: it is a statement about the kind of person who turns up wearing one. Giving it the care it deserves is, in Robson’s view, part of the same commitment to dressing well.
For Cecil, the Epsom visit was a quick stop before the rest of the day’s festivities. He left with his heirloom hat restored to something closer to its former self, its kinked brim straightened just enough, its century of wear worn rather than hidden. Royal Ascot’s procession of carriages, silk ties and improbable millinery awaited, and he would be ready for it, armed with a hat that, by Robson’s reckoning, had already survived enough seasons to know exactly how to behave.