About us

Two friends and one worn-out beret

It started with an argument. One of us had a beret that had outlasted three winter coats and refused to throw it away. The other said it was past saving. Nine years later the argument is settled, and the idea that came out of it has not moved an inch: a cap should be worn until it is shaped like you, not replaced every season because the seams gave up first.

What we actually do

We are not a factory. We choose the wool, we choose the wooden blocks, and we have worked with the same finishers in the Béarn since the beginning. Felt is a slow material. It gets its body from being worked, not from being cut and stitched fast, and the difference shows up about six months in, when a properly finished cap still holds its crown and a cheap one has gone soft and shapeless.

That is the whole product. There is no clever technology in a beret. There is wool, a block, a band and someone who has done it enough times to know when to stop.

Why the price looks the way it does

The construction was never the expensive part. Most of what you pay for a cap in a European shop window is the window itself, the middleman and the name on the label. We sell ours directly, so what you pay is close to what it costs to make well.

About this run

The batch on the site now is the last one our finishers will make for us, and we priced it to leave rather than to sit. When a colour is gone it is gone, and we are not re-ordering it at this cost. That is the honest version, without a countdown clock attached to it.

What does not end with the run: thirty days to change your mind, and a one-year warranty on the band and the stitching. Finishing a production run is not the same as walking away from what we sold you.

Fit, in one paragraph

Most of our caps carry an adjustable band and sit comfortably on head circumferences from roughly 54 to 60 cm, which covers the large majority of adults. If yours does not sit right, write to us before you send it back — nine times out of ten it is the band, and it takes a minute to fix.

Talking to us

A person answers, usually within one business day, Monday to Friday. We would rather you asked before ordering than guessed and returned it.

More than 14,000 customers across Europe have made Alderton part of how they get dressed. We are grateful for every one of them, and mildly amused that it all came out of a beret that should have been binned.