Inside Greeley Hat Works, history does not sit behind glass. It measures heads, preserves patterns, shapes felt, withstands pressure, and goes back to work the next morning.
Greeley Hat Works owner and hatmaker Trent Johnson calls it “Retro-Tech”—traditional hatmaking equipment kept in service not because it looks interesting in photographs, but because it still does the job exceptionally well. After 30 years under Trent’s stewardship, these tools remain part of a process that values precision (not perfection), craftsmanship, and the individual wearing the finished hat.
01 | The Conformateur + Formillion
They may look like mechanical curiosities, but together, the conformateur and formillion accomplish something a standard measurement cannot: they capture the actual shape of a person’s head.
The conformateur is placed on the customer’s head, where its pins trace the individual contours of the skull and create a paper pattern at one-sixth scale. That small pattern is then placed into the formillion, which enlarges it back to life size. The resulting full-size pattern gives the hatmaker an accurate representation of the customer’s unique head shape.
Trent calls the process “technical with no technology.” More importantly, after decades of making custom hats, he has yet to find something that does the job better.
02 | The Cedar Pattern
The full-size pattern is then transferred to cedar, creating a physical replica of the customer’s individual head shape.
During the hatmaking process, the cedar pattern gives the hatmaker a lasting reference for shaping and fitting the hat. Once the hat is complete, it goes home with the customer, where it can be placed inside the hat when it is not being worn to help preserve its custom shape and fit.
From conformateur, to formillion, to cedar, each step preserves something measurements alone cannot: the shape of the person who will ultimately wear the hat. Pasted text(20260925-152710)
03 | The Pattern Vault
Somewhere inside Greeley Hat Works is the shape of nearly every head that has passed through its doors.
The Pattern Vault preserves the shop’s head-pattern cards, creating a physical archive of customers accumulated over decades. Rather than reducing those records to a few measurements on a screen, the system preserves the individual contours needed to recreate a customer’s fit years later.
It is part recordkeeping, part working history—and one more example of Greeley Hat Works choosing the method that works best rather than simply the method that is newest.
04 | The Silver Tape Measure Holder
Not every tool at Greeley Hat Works is more than a century old. Some are simply made to last.
A few years ago, Trent’s friends at Edward H. Bohlin created a one-of-a-kind sterling silver holder for the tape measures he uses in the shop. Designed by Josh Alis, the piece was made specifically for Trent as a birthday gift—and according to Trent, there is not another one like it.
The renowned silversmith’s history includes the elaborate silverwork associated with Hollywood and the Rose Parade, making the piece as much craftsmanship as utility. At Greeley Hat Works, however, it has a job to do: it holds Trent’s tape measures.