Tonak

Tonak's history begins in 1799, when Jan Nepomuk Hückel established a hat-making manufactory in Nový Jičín, a town in what is now the Moravian-Silesian region of the Czech Republic. The town already had an established hatters' guild by 1630, when its articles were confirmed by the local town council, giving Nový Jičín a headwear-making tradition that predated Hückel's factory by more than a century and provided a base of skilled local labor. The company name, TONAK, is an acronym of the Czech phrase 'TOvárny NA Klobouky' — 'factories for hats.' Over more than two centuries the company weathered changes in ownership and political systems, including nationalization during the socialist era, while continuing production through techniques such as wool- and fur-felt forming, blocking, and finishing. Today TONAK a.s. operates as a joint-stock company with production based in Nový Jičín and a second facility in Strakonice, and is counted among the oldest continuously operating hat manufacturers in Europe. The brand continues to produce felt hats, caps and other traditional headwear, having marked 220 years of production as documented by regional press in 2019, and remains closely tied to Nový Jičín's civic identity as a historic center of Central European hat-making.