A haberdasher's shop or the items sold therein are called haberdashery.

Obsolete meanings of the term "haberdasher" refer to a "dealer in, or maker of, hats and caps".

The term may come from the Anglo-French word hapertas, meaning petty wares, or from related words.

A possibly spurious origination is that it comes from the German sentence, "Ich habe das," = "I have that," in English. This alluded to a haberdashery having whatever a gentleman needed to wear.

Saint Louis IX, the King of France 1226–70, is supposedly the patron saint of haberdashers.

Notable sometime haberdashers

• Robert Aske - a philanthropist
• Captain James Cook, (R.N., FRS) - 18th century British navigator and explorer, apprenticed to this job in his youth.
• John Graunt - one of the first demographers
• Joseph Merrick, "the Elephant Man", worked as a haberdasher before being a freak show act
• Paavo Nurmi - legendary Finnish distance runner
• Harry S. Truman - the American President (1945-53)
• Johnny Carson - of The Tonight Show
• Charles Taze Russell - the founder of the Bible Student Movement
• Wayne Knight - actor, most famous role: "Newman" from Seinfield
• Christopher Lloyd - actor, e.g. Dr. Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy
• George Newnes - founders of the Tit-Bits newspaper (1881) and the popular The Strand Magazine, of Sherlock Holmes fame

See also

• Draper
• Millinery
• Worshipful Company of Haberdashers

References