The first collapsible top hat was invented as a matter of convenience in the early nineteenth-century, when the increasingly extravagant dimensions of the still recently-developed style had begun to cause problems in theatre cloakrooms. The first model was produced in France by Antoine Gibus, from whom the style took its name, though they were also known as 'opera hats', due to their provision of convenience and requisite style when attending cultural events, and also as 'chapeau claques', after the clicking sound made by one when opened.

The top hat was the head-covering of choice for nineteenth-century gentlemen, and for those who wished to look like gentlemen, and maintaining an image of urbanity and authority was of great importance at all times.

This example's modest proportions are very typical of the very end of the nineteenth-century, when the top hat, going the same way as the powdered wig as a superfluous symbol of a parasitic aristocracy, was finally beginning to go out of fashion.