Overlooked No More: Otto Lucas, ‘God in the Hat World’

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

To many fashionable women in the mid-20th century, no hat was worth wearing unless it was made by Otto Lucas.

A London-based milliner, Lucas designed chic turbans, berets and cloches, often made from luxe velvets and silks and adorned with flowers or feathers.

His designs made it onto the covers of magazines like British Vogue, and onto the heads of clients who reportedly included the actresses Greta Garbo and Gene Tierney, and the Duchesses of Windsor and Kent.

The name Otto Lucas was ubiquitous in England, and at the height of his success, he sold thousands of hats each year around the world.