Anything but ordinary: Leon Freiberger has set up his own hat maker in Salzburg. The 25-year-old is convinced that there is a hat to suit everyone.
SALZBURG. “I don’t have a hat face” – a sentence that Leon Freiberger hears again and again, but which he can’t do much with. The 25-year-old from Salzburg is a trained hatter and has been running his own workshop in the Mülln district since December 2021. “Anyone can wear a hat, you just have to find the right hat for the person. It’s a lot about proportions and that the shape and style of the hat suit the person. It shouldn’t look like a disguise, but authentic and complete the overall picture,” explains Freiberger.
Internships in Portugal and Switzerland
His fascination for creativity, textiles and especially for the hat-making craft began during his school days.
“I originally trained as a tailor and wanted to be a designer. I did an internship with a men’s tailor who told me a lot about headpieces at the Salzburg Festival. That’s when I knew that I wanted to do that later on.”
remembers Freiberger.
After graduating from the Annahof fashion school, he began an apprenticeship at the hatter “Zapf” in Werfen – but with a few stops along the way, as the company was only able to offer him an apprenticeship a year later.
“I used this time for internships in Portugal, Switzerland and Vienna. In Portugal I spent three months at a raw material production facility, where the material for the later hats was made. There I met a hat maker from Switzerland by chance who offered me an internship in his company. Here I learned the perfection of hat making. This meant that I was able to start my apprenticeship with some prior knowledge,” says Freiberger. Due to the pandemic, Zapf-Hüte had to let him go after completing his apprenticeship. “For me, that was also the point when the idea, the dream of self-employment, became more and more concrete,” says the 25-year-old.
Own workshop in Mülln
The workshop directly on Müllner Hügel, where Freiberger is celebrating his third anniversary in December, was a stroke of luck. Since then, the Salzburg resident has been making custom hats. Most of his customers come from Salzburg, but tourists also regularly visit the small business. Freiberger needs around three to five hours of work to make a custom hat.
“Classics are the ‘all-round hats’ made of felt, which can be worn with any outfit in everyday life. In summer, straw hats are of course very popular. More unusual hat models, such as bowler hats or top hats, are always there, but are the exception.”
said the Salzburg hatter.
He himself hardly ever leaves the house without a hat. “For me, that’s part of it. I certainly have more than ten hats at home, but currently I wear three or four hats that I alternate between,” adds Freiberger.
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