History Of Felt Hats

On the seventh day of the Book of Notes on Zhou Rites: "Their vellus hair is felt, waiting for state affairs." It shows that the production of fine wool felt was available in the Zhou Dynasty more than 2700 years ago. Later, felt hats of the Han Dynasty were put out at the Loulan Site and the Luobunuer Tomb. In the Tang Dynasty, felt hats made of white felt were called "white hats", which were triangular, high topped, hollow topped, brimmed and curled eaves. The Sui and Tang dynasties were popular among the people.

In the ninetieth year of A Dream of Red Mansions, a man was suddenly seen wearing a felt hat on his head and a blue cloth dress.

In the 25th year of Guangxu (1899), a man named Pan Shangsheng in Shaoxing moved from the rural area to the urban area. In the north of Xiyingkou, a bustling city, he used the "Pan Wansheng" sign, which originally produced red felt, to produce felt hats. This is the first professional felt hat shop in the history of Shaoxing urban area. The shop is also a workshop. On the black green dragon sign in the door of the single room shop, there are four gold characters of "true no two price". There are three or four employees. The annual output is about 2000 pieces. The shop is produced and sold by itself. The price of each piece is one yuan and two cents. The business is good. There are two wooden signboards on both sides of the store, which are "genuine" and "beware of counterfeiting". In the off-season, a low-grade felt hat is produced and sold to Jinhua and Lanxi. Local women often use this hat to cover their heads when cooking. It is also called "grey hat", which is also a custom.

Since then, two smaller felt hat shops have opened in the urban area. One is Yan Jutai, next to the Fire God Temple at Banqiaotou, and the other is Wang Yongxing, diagonally opposite the Rihui Lane on Shangda Road. However, both of them closed down around 1930, and some of their masters entered Pan Wansheng. Since then, Pan Wansheng has become more famous.

In late October 1940, the Japanese invaders invaded Shaoxing and burned down a section of shops and houses from Dashan Temple to Shuicheng Bridge in the urban area. "Pan Wansheng" also suffered. After the reconstruction in 1942, a friend sent a tiger painting Zhihe to hang in the shop. The legend that the tiger is a felt hat Soru might be related to this. In the late 1940s, there were five felt hat workshops in Taoyan, with an annual output of more than 7000 pieces. It can be seen that felt hats sold well and were very popular at that time. Before the cooperation between 1940 and 1956 in Shaoxing urban area, there were several small felt hat shops that were also workshops, such as "Shen Baoji" located in Yamen, "Ding Youji" located in Mawuqiao, and "Han Jinji" located in the east gate of the county.