In 1903 Julianna Mühlbauer opened a small millinery with a shop attached in Floridsdorf, a suburb of Vienna. A generous 100 years later the company is in its 4th generation and established as one of the best addresses for all things to do with headwear.
Klaus Mühlbauer, who took over the company from his parents in 2001, transformed the traditional Viennese company into a headwear label discussed and publicised internationally. If it has something to do with headwear these days, one simply cannot ignore Mühlbauer.
The route to contemporary hat fashions included the return to old know-how and traditional hand crafting techniques. Klaus Mühlbauer designs a headwear collection for men and women twice a year together with the designers Nora Berger and Barbara Gölles.
The hat has been defined anew and freed from age-old clichés. Instead it has become an important fashion accessory and enjoys the spotlight - until now a role played by bags and shoes.
Mühlbauer products deliver aesthetic benchmarks and score on all points, especially first class materials and hand-finishing. Which didn’t remain a secret for long. Today almost 60% of the hats leaving the Viennese workshop are destined for international fashion temples. Well-known stores such as Le Bon Marché (Paris), 10 Corso Como (Milan), Harrods (London), Tomas Maier (Miami), Fred Segal (Los Angeles), Isetan or HP France (Tokyo) are all Mühlbauer customers.
It is not surprising therefore, that opinion leaders such as Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep, Madonna, Yoko Ono and Georgia Jagger discovered the headwear label from Vienna.
Cooperations with Anne-Valérie Hash or the Japanese Label Lyricism amongst others also help to increase Mühlbauer’s international presence.
The first new flagship store was opened in Vienna’s premier shopping district in 2005 in order to give this well-known traditional brand a broader horizon and earn the respect it deserved locally. The monobrand shop, designed by the architect duo Kühn Malvezzi, reflects the design and quality of the hand-finished headwear. The sequel to this successful concept has been launched in 2009 with the new Mühlbauer hat store in Salzburg. Since 2011 the Mühlbauer hats are available online at www.muehlbauer.at.