Obituary: Felicity Emmett (Draper)
Award-winning entrepreneur and well-known hat-shop proprietor.
At the age of 58, after 40 years working in haute couture, Felicity opened her innovative and extremely popular hat hire shop in Churchtown, Southport.
Business success and numerous local and national awards followed and Felicity was in high demand for talks, and TV and radio interviews.
Felicity was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1930. From the age of 15, she worked in the fashionable Brands department store there and modelled hats for the Belfast Gazette. Her love for millinery was born.
She married Laurence Stanley Draper in August 1956 and started married life in West Derby, Liverpool. The couple moved to Maghull in 1959, where they lived for many years, to raise their three children, Colin, Jane and Jeffrey.
During this period, Felicity returned to haute couture, and worked for many years in the city centre, for prestigious boutique fashion houses, Berketex and Jean Varon.
In 1985, with her children now adults, Felicity and her husband moved to Southport. Felicity spent the next 38 years there, during which period she divorced her first husband and married Anthony Emmett. Both have since predeceased her.
It was the move to Southport that appeared to rekindle Felicity’s passion for fashion. Felicity had long appreciated that the enjoyment of wearing a beautiful designer hat for a special occasion was not a realistic option for many ladies, due to the high cost for its potentially one-off use. With her fashion experience and knowledge, Felicity was confident that hat-hire was the innovative solution.
Felicity used most of her savings to buy her initial stock of hats and opened her shop ‘’Felicity Hat Hire’’ in Botanic Road, in Churchtown Village, Southport.
She built close relationships with top milliners, including Sir Frederick Fox, the then Queen’s Milliner, and through her knowledge, drive and enthusiasm, obtained their endorsements to feature their creations in her shop.
The business quickly grew, with ladies queuing to get in the shop to view the latest beautiful millinery creations by the top millinery houses, available to hire at affordable prices.
The shop soon became a landmark in the town, attracting much new business to the area. After serving many well-known customers over the years, Felicity achieved celebrity status herself, appearing in numerous newspaper articles, and on radio and television, at local and national level.
Her TV appearances included being interviewed on the Terry Wogan show and The One Show.
Felicity has several pages devoted to her and her hat-hire business in the book ‘’Churchtown – The Village that gave Birth to Southport’’.
Felicity’s younger son, Jeffrey, and his wife, Niamh, adopted Felicity’s successful hat-hire business model to establish Felicity Hat Hire as a national franchise business that expanded to around 80 shops around the country.
Felicity won many awards, including being Sefton’s ‘’Entrepreneur of the Year, 2000’’, something that she was very proud of.
Felicity was always delighted to model her hats and to talk to many women’s organisations and became well known throughout the Southport area.
She prided herself on being able to find a hat to suit anyone, but was always direct if she felt that a customer’s own selection wasn’t the right one for them.
In 2008, Felicity, aged 78, sold her hat shop business and retired. She remained in close contact with it and the new proprietor, and stayed in Southport until 2023, still giving talks and interviews into her nineties.
In December 2023, Felicity moved to the South Lakes, to be near her daughter, Jane, and her husband, Mark, and in an area where, in the 1960’s, she had enjoyed so many happy weekends with her young family, in a static caravan, close to Grange-over-Sands.
In October 2025, at the age of 95, Felicity passed away peacefully. She leaves behind her a large, loving family, including her children, grandchildren and one great grandchild.
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