‘The highest standard’: A touch of luxury for the Australian Army

The commitment to craftsmanship achieved by France’s leading luxury houses at the Olympic Games in Paris can be found closer to home. Follow the Macleay River instead of the Seine, take the Kempsey turn off on the Pacific Highway, drive past the Slim Dusty Centre and you will find the unremarkable home of the height of homemade Australian fashion: hatmaker Akubra.

The nondescript workshop, where the 148-year-old company moved to from Sydney in 1974, will never be mistaken for a boutique on the Champs-Élysées. But inside the premises a 115-strong workforce share the dedication of their Parisienne counterparts, steaming, pummelling, shellacking and taming rabbit fur into stiff-brimmed perfection.

Workers in starched white coats at Louis Vuitton and Dior reached luxury’s pinnacle at the Olympics with monogrammed medal cases and an intricately beaded gown for Celine Dion. For the more casually dressed Akubra workers, the gold medal is their recently renewed contract with the Australian Defence Force to produce slouch hats for the army.

“There’s no two ways about it,” says Ron Palin, Akubra’s general manager of operations. “The highest standard we put out of this place is a slouch hat. It’s not because we are held to a higher standard but because the history behind it transfers to us doing a better job. You don’t want to let them down.”

That history stretches back to World War I when Akubra made slouch hats for the Australian Army. Last year in November, a rare turn in the road occurred when Andrew and Nicola Forrest bought the business for an undisclosed amount from the Keir family, who had operated Akubra since 1918 when ownership was transferred from founder Benjamin Dunkerley to his son-in-law, Stephen Keir.

The extension of Akubra’s contract as the sole supplier of slouch hats to the Australian Defence Force shows that it’s business as usual.

“The order started at 16,000 hats [last year],” says Natalie Culina, who started as chief executive at Akubra in February. “It’s just been increased to 25,000 hats this year. That’s a lot of soldiers.”

The contract’s significance goes beyond the sizable order for the Forrests, who purchased Akubra through their private investment arm Tattarang to sit alongside R.M. Williams in their fashion stable.

1000 hats are made at the Akubra workshop in a day, passing through 60 pairs of hands across six weeks and enduring 162 steps.Credit: Wolter Peeters

“The slouch hat is a source of national courage and pride with a history that is deeply ingrained in Australian families, including my own,” Andrew Forrest says. “My family has lost sons in all the great wars since the Boer War and the slouch hat, made by Australians for Australians, has a special place in our hearts.”

That pride can be found closer to the workshop floor where Les Millar, a tradesman in the blocking shop who has worked at Akubra for 43 years, handles slouch hats with extra care.

“My son Jamie serves in the Army,” Millar says. “When he marched out at Wagga Wagga 20 years ago a relation said to me, ‘well there are two things out there you had something to do with, your hat and your son’.”

“I’m proud of him and the work we do here.”

For Culina, the military contract contributes to a problem many fashion businesses would envy during challenging times. “We can’t keep up with demand,” she says. “There are worse problems to have, but that’s our major challenge.”

Roughly 1000 hats are made at the workshop in a day, passing through 60 pairs of hands across six weeks and enduring 162 steps in a process that encompasses, washing, shrinking, sandpapering and sewing. The diverse skill set, including lining up the eyelets on a slouch hat by hand, has few workers on the production line worrying about the intervention of AI.

“It takes two years’ worth of training to get someone on board,” says Palin. “We find that if they’re still with us in five years that they tend to stay. A few people leave to see what else is out there but find their way back.

“There’s a lot goes into making a handcrafted hat, and most of what we do is how it was done 100 years ago.”

Culina’s challenge is investing in increased production without losing the hands-on craftsmanship that goes into each Akubra hat.

“It’s an incredible brand making an incredible product so that will be core at maintaining and moving into the future,” Culina says. “Actually growing it, making it bigger and investing.”

Until then, the current Kempsey workforce operates decades-old machinery that is strong enough to meet the Australian Army’s exacting standards, which include scanning each shipment to check that the right khaki tone has been achieved.

“In my time, the only slouch hat that has been sent back had something wrong with the chin strap hook,” Palin says. “We fixed it. It won’t happen again.”

The writer and photographer travelled to Kempsey as guests of Akubra.

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.