The various unions of hatters across Europe had long collaborated on support for workers moving between countries, and in 1878 representatives of the unions in Denmark, Germany and Italy all met at an exhibition in Paris to discuss the possibility of forming an international organisation.
No such federation was created, but further meetings were held in Paris in 1889, Zurich in 1893, and London in 1896.
Its headquarters moved to Altenburg in 1906, Monza in 1921, and back to Paris in the early 1930s.
[1] By 1936, it had affiliates in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
After the war, the hatters' unions were admitted to the International Shoe and Leather Workers' Federation.