Hatters
For various reasons, hats are cultural important in Scarterra, and hat makers are respected professionals. Most civilized feudal nations have a Hat Makers Guild of some sort.
The term "haberdasher" referred to a makers of men's clothes, but had a focus on hats. That was more of a renaissance term, not a medieval term.
Before central air and heating became a thing on Earth, men and women were both equally likely to wear hats. Sometimes "hatter" is used to refer to a maker of men's hats and "milliner" was a term for makers of women's hats (again more renaissance than medieval), but in Scarterra, most hat makers make hats for both genders, so the term "hatter" is usually gender neutral.
Because hats are a big conveyer status and personal expression, most Scarterrans take the artistry of their hats seriously. Lower status Scarterrans are likely to buy a hat rather than make one themselves, even if they make all their other clothes.
Men's hats and women's hats are styled differently, but they are made of the same basic materials. Wool and straw hats are the most common. Even though these materials are readily available, both straw hats and wool hats can be dressed up in a number of ways, so they aren't automatically considered peasant hats. Both commoners and nobles are likely to wear straw and wool hats.
Richer people sometimes flex by wearing hats made of rarified materials like silk, velvet. Wealthy people are more likely to use fancier cloth dyes such as purple. At all social levels, a person's fanciest article of clothing is frequently his or her hat.
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Career
Career Progression
Hatter apprenticeships typically last six years, which is a little bit shorter than the average apprenticeship of seven years, but not by much.
A fourth year apprentice is probably skilled enough to make journeyman quality hats, but the extra two to three years of being paid at an apprentice rate is functionally how a master is reimbursed for the time and effort spent training an apprentice.
The career progression is formally apprentice-journeyman-master though some hat makers live and die as journeymen without regrets, and some journeymen are more skilled than some masters. The difference between a master and a journeyman is whether they own their own shop, and not every skilled journeyman wants to run his own shop though a large portion of hat makers all want to run their own shop eventually.
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Payment & Reimbursement
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Hat makers regularly see large sums of money, but they also have fairly hefty expenses because Scarterran hat buyers often demand high quality materials.
Apprentices are paid in room and board and maybe a pittance of extra spending money.
During good economic times, a typical journeyman hat maker can expect to net between 10 and 20 copper pieces a day, which is five times what a common laborer normally receives. Barter is common in Scarterra, so hat makers are often paid for in the form of other goods and services rather than in coins.
Perception
Purpose
To make attractive and functional hats.
Social Status
Mid to high
Demographics
Most trades guilds are male dominated, and hat making is no exception, but female hat makers are hardly forbidden. About one out of four Scarterran hat makers are women.
History
Hats have been worn to keep sun off a person's face and to insulate heat when it's warm out since mortalkind first wore clothing.
Hats have been used as a form of personal expression and showing status since before the rise of civilization.
When guilds began to form, hat makers were among the first tradesmen to organize.
Operations
Materials
A lot of peasant families opt to make their own clothes, and sometimes they make their own hats, but hats are more complicated at first glance.
They need to be soft enough to be comfortable and insulating but hard enough to retain their shape. A lot of hat making is knowing how to treat fabric to achieve this end. It often involves shaping cloth around a vaguely head shaped wood block and applying soap, heat, or other treatments.
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Type
Artisan
Demand
high
Legality
Buying and selling hat is perfectly legal, but some jurisdictions make it illegal for a merchant to sell a hat made by someone who is not a member of an officially recognized Hatter's Guild.
Peasants making and trading their own non-guild sanctioned hats is not illegal if it's not sold in a marketplace, and even if this hat trading is technically illegal, no guild official would bat an eye at this. They are only threatened if a foreign hatter moves in and sets up a hat shop without paying the guild their dues. And anyone from more then ten miles away qualifies as a "foreigner".
Famous in the Field
Other Associated professions
Related Technologies
I am reminded of the Hutkonig in Regensburg Germany. This shop made Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter Hat for Alice in Wonderland.