This is the hat I made for last year’s  Stroll with a Hat (Passejada amb Barret).

Whether or not to sketch before making a hat is something that is often discussed in the forums. I think it simply depends on the type of hat, and possibly on your working process. I enjoy sketching although I’m not particularly good at it, but it works for me. Many sketches don’t get to become a hat, but I often review old sketches for self-inspiration. From sketch to finished product it’s often a long process with many changes. In this case the hat started as an open hat box, and it was only later on that I decided to add the top hat:

My choice of material for the structure of the hat was “toile gommée”, a very stiff canvas that is sold in France and that is very hard to work with, but that added the stiffness required for the hat box. It’s very hard to sew through, so it’s not my material of choice. It can be blocked because the stiffener softens with steam and water, but it takes muscle!

The hat box is made of tie silk that comes in narrow bolts intended to make gentelman’s ties. I think this silk is what inspired me to make the hat because it just talks hat box to me. The “tissue paper” inside of the box is silk organza (from a leftover piece that my friend Paco Peralta gave me), and the hat is made of silk shantung to match the green cape that Paco made for me.

The most difficult part was the top hat, making sure all stitches where hidden and the fabric was nice and tight. Going “miniature” makes life very difficult, particularly with such a thick material as the toile gommée. But that stiffness of the material is what allowed me to flare the top of the hat with my hands with some water and when it dried it was rock hard.

Another important moment when making a hat is deciding where and how to sew the elements that make it. I used two plastic headbands, covered with elastic cotton velvet ribbon, and I played a little with the position of the hat…

I wore this hat in Madrid for the Head over Heels event organized by Value Retail Spain at Las Rozas Outlet. Stephen Jones was the mentor of that event and we had the good fortune of getting an inspiring talk from him. I love that he praised those of us (all milliners) that were wearing a hat at the moment, if we don’t wear hats who is going to? And the big surprise? There were a few of his hats on display and one of them was a hat box with hats, how crazy is that?! Here you can see it, on the left, behind the great man himself. Could they be more different and yet spring from the same idea?:

And here I am, wearing the final product, on the day of the Stroll with a Hat, next to my good friend Nina Pawlowsky:

The printed book “Fabulous Fascinators, 14 Fantastic Projects from Simple to Advanced”, by Kerry Aston, was recently released by Morse-Brown (who are also behind the www.how2hats.com ebooks). I’ve received a free copy from them so I could review it in my blog, which I am happy to do (keep them coming). I loved the presentation upon arrival, with the book wrapped in tissue paper with a big sticker that said” MAKE HATS. TURN HEADS.”

For starters, and just in case you cannot be bothered to read the whole review I will tell you that you will want to buy this book if you are a beginner wishing to learn how to make small headpieces, cocktail hats and whimseys (aka fascinators) out of sinamay. You may even want to buy this book because you need to attend a special event and you want to make a small headpiece for yourself, just that once. You may also want this book if, like me, you cannot help but buy any hat related book on the market.

THREAD AND NEEDLE are central to this book. If you want to make a small headpiece, with this how-to book you are on the right track and I recommed it. Once you get a taste you can move on to bigger things.

Having said this, I will rant for a little while and then get back to the review…

*RANT ALERT*

Some of you who know me well, know that I despise “the F word” (and I’m not the only one, really not). FASCINATOR is a word I rarely use. The reason is because more often than not the word Fascinator is used to describe badly made, glued up horrors composed of a bought sinamay base, a couple of feathers, some badly cut veil and a couple of buttons. All of it held up together with hot glue. That sort of “fascinator” makes me cringe (even if it looks nice from afar). Just google hot glue gun fascinator to get an idea of what I’m talking about. I’m not saying you cannot use a hot glue gun in the comfort of your home to glue up together whatever takes your fancy, what I’m saying is that doing THAT doesn’t turn you by miracle into a milliner, a craftsperson or an artist, and that portraying yourself as one and selling those products to the public only means that your are DELUDING yourself and selling a second rate product to an unsuspecting (and clueless) customer. There. I said it.

If you hate my guts for saying what I’m saying, it’s your right to do so. But if you ALSO enjoy making headpieces, cocktail hats and the likes, you should KNOW that there is so much MORE that you can learn and that you can become . You can easily start with this book and move ahead. Instead of hating my guts you should thank me for pointing this out and you should embrace a world of possibilities, because there are a great many resources out there that will allow you to reach your goal and help you become an accessories creator and if hats are your thing, a MILLINER. Bottom line: a hot glue gun is not the way. You are allowed to disagree, of course, in which case we will agree to disagree.

*RANT ENDED… back to the review*

BACK TO THE REVIEW. Fabulous Fascinators is a book written by Kerry Aston, and it includes 14 projects requiring different skills. All projects have sinamay as it’s main material and have plenty of detailed step by step pictures.

Each project has been given a name, and introduces a technique. They’ve been classified as Easy, Intermediate and Advanced. These are the projects:

Easy:

• Marcelle: working with veiling
• Cerys: Moulding bias strip
• Colette: Moulding bias strip II
• Courtney: Sinamay flowers & petals
• Naomi: Sinamay & veiling bows

Intermediate projects:

• Sophie: Rolled edges
• Florentina: Feather pom pom
• Alicia: Feather mount
• Lily: Sinamay Calla lilies
• Mia: Working with crin
• Henrietta: Sinamay disc

Advanced Projects:

• Stella: Wired sinamay
• Mirabella: Blocked fascinator
• Catherine: Your “pièce de résistance”…

The descriptions are detailed and it has been well thought out to make the projects achievable, simplifying some processes but still achieving a good result.

The style of the projects is very much in line with the current high street fashion trends, but if that’s not your thing you can use the techniques to do other things.

On the critical side, I think more care could have been given to the materials list. I believe a more thorough explanation concerning Sinamay would have been welcome considering it’s the main “ingredient” on the proyects. There are many types of Sinamay (plain, textured…), different grades available, and although more often than not it comes pre stiffened, some times it doesn’t. Millinery wire perhaps deserved more of an explanation, since it comes in different gauges, which might cause confusion when purchasing.

Finally Petersham ribbon, is said in the book to be also known as cross-grain ribbon… I believe that is just a typographical error, since it would be gros-grain ribbon, but my concern is that the two are not always synonymous and while Petersham has a scallopped edge, gros-grain (these days) is used to describe a vaguely similar, but straight edged, ribbon that is generally not useful for the purposes of millinery. More often than not “gros-grain” is used to describe the straight edge polyester “look alike”, but it’s important to search for the right product, with scallopped edge and a composition of cotton and/or rayon.

Still on the subject of Petersham, while I believe that learning how to bleach a feather is all fine and dandy, I think it’s more important to learn how to swirl Petersham ribbon to avoid unsightly wrinkles when binding the edge of a hat. Here is where having proper Petersham (scallopped edge) will be useful, because straight edge ribbon will not curl and adapt to the edge of the hat.

Despite of my rant I believe smaller cocktail hats and whimseys are nothing new and will always exist. The ones in this book are simple to make, but they can be very elaborate, technically challenging and definitely very becoming. Sometimes the outfit and the occasion calls for smaller hats.

Let’s just stop calling them fascinators… pretty please?… with a hat on top.

I want to share some of the details of the making of my chignonette (cache-chignon) hat with a green bow (it’s about time, I’ve had this blog entry half written for more than a year).  I’ve made several versions of this hat and I really love it. I’ve never been much of a fan of 60’s headwear, but since I did my research for the Hat Designer of the Year 2011 competition whose theme was La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini’s 1960 film), I’ve grown to enjoy ,respect and be inspired by the hats of that era.

By the way, if you feel an irresistible urge to own one of these, and you are in Los Angeles, you can buy one at The Millinery Guild boutique!

This picture is of the first cache-chignon hat I made, for the Hat Designer of the Year competition.

A similar one (no veil) made it to the press (La Vanguardia), when I wore it to a 50’s themed party at the Fashion Museum of Barcelona. In the picture I’m chatting away with my dear friend and colleague Nina Pawlowsky:

I did a lot of research for the competition, because it was such a specific theme. Research is something I enjoy doing because it forces me to plunge deep as I try to understand why fashion develops a certain way at a certain time. Here are some of the images I collected during my research:

(sorry for the repeated image!)

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Finally, what a lot of you have been waiting for, the report and pictures of the final that took place on July 2nd 2012. As you can see there was a country theme going on with bales of hay (echoing the theme for the exhibits outside of the hall). I must say that last year the setup was better, but perhaps this year there have been more people daring to look at the hats because they were more accessible.

There was a banner in French describing the competition and explaining the theme, which was “LUCK” but in the banner it had been rebaptized as “GET LUCKY”, not quite the same as you will agree.

The winner of this years competition has been Honoyo Imai, a japanese milliner. Her hats were inspired by “Omikuji”, Japanese fortunes written on pieces of paper that are bought at shrines and tied on branches of nearby trees.

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Did you already see my sketches? Well, these are the hats I was asked to make for the semifinal of the Hat Designer of the Year competition 2012 and that have been exhibited for the final at Première Classe in Paris:

Do you want to know how I made them?… Then keep on reading!

COUTURE HAT: 7 YEARS HAT LUCK

The theme for this competition was LUCK, and this hat is a positive twist on a bad luck omen, a broken mirror that traditionally means 7 years of bad luck has turned into 7 years of HAT luck, and that is very good luck indeed. Initially I wasn’t thinking of writing words with the glass shards but every time I looked at the glass shards (made of plexiglass) my brain saw letters, so in the end I decided to write HAT LUCK on the hat!

The plexiglas has a protective film that I kept until the very last minute, and that allowed me to write notes to know which piece was which!

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Last Monday was the final of the Hat Designer of the Year, a millinery competition organized by The Hat Magazine, and I was lucky to be one of the 6 finalists with three of my hats being exhibited at the Première Classe fashion trade show in Paris (30th June-3rd July 2012).

I want to give you a full report, but first I must start with a spoiler: I did not win any of the prizes… still, being there at the final, one of the lucky 6 (out of more than 60 initial entries) it was a big satisfaction.

This competition takes place every year, and those milliners who want to participate have to design 6 hats based on the theme that the organizers have set and send the corresponding sketches. Last year the theme was La Dolce Vita, and this year it was, simply, LUCK. A tricky theme! The judge was Marie-Claire Barban of the company Cheri Bibi.

There must be two model hats, to be made to a couture level; two ready-to-wear hats which could be produced in a factory; and two hats made from a flat pattern (cut-and-sewn or knitted).

Of all the entries, the judge (Marie-Claire Barban) selected 14 designers who moved on to the semi finals. These 14 designers where instructed to make specific designs (one of each category) and to send them over to the Hat Magazine. Based on the hats made six finalists where selected to have their work exhibited at Première Classe where the final took place.

I will begin by showing you the three designs out of the six that I did not have to create for the competition. The couture hat was to be a three dimensional horn of plenty in dyed pinokpok abaca (a very fine grade of sinamay) with vintage fruits pouring out of its mouth. The ready-to-wear design was a chenille braid tubular hat, simbolizing a wishing well. The flat pattern hat was a whimsical fortune cookie with an embroidered message saying “YOU’LL WEAR A HAT”.

And next the designs I had to create for the semifinal, and that got me into the final.  The couture design is a chignon cover of double starbright braid in black, with broken pieces of plexiglas mirror that spell the words HAT LUCK, bringing 7 years HAT luck to the wearer, of course. The ready to wear design is a melusine fur felt in grey with fur felt swallows on either side. In france, swallows bring abundance and good luck. Finally the dice cap, made in wool with hand sewn dots in leather, refers to the luck needed in games of chance.

Strange enough, the first sketch “7 years of hat luck” was stolen from the exhibition during a lapse in surveilance, I hope whoever has it at least enjoys it and treats it well (I would like to have it back, please!)… but it boggles the mind how people have no problem taking what’s not theirs!

This is it from now. Two more posts coming, one with the actual hats I made, and some construction details, and another one with pictures of the exhibition in Paris and all the participating milliners and their hats.

The competition Hat Designer of the Year is organized by The Hat Magazine. Every year they decide on a theme and invite professional milliners to participate. On 2010 the theme was Steampunk, and this year it was La Dolce Vita. The participating milliners have to design a collection of 6 hats (2 haute couture, 2 blocked, 2 pattern) and send sketches to the magazine. From those sketches the judges select a few that have to actually make 3 hats from their collection. From the finished hats, 6 designers (or 9 this year) are selected to go to the final.

All finalists except for Kerrie Ann Meaton-Baker (from Australia) came to Paris for the final that took place at Premiere-Classe. The hats that made it to the final were all very nicely  displayed at the center of the trade show, and after the prizes were announced there was champagne for everyone.

Here are some pictures of the event. On the top left corner I’m with Felix Weber and Dirk Seegmüller trying to shamelessly steal away their 2nd prize medal (it did not work, unfortunately). Under that picture on the left is Nigel Denford of The Hat Magazine with the representative of the Florence based hat company Marzi, awarding the industry prize to Emmy Jaarsma (who also won the 1st prize and popular vote), and to its right is judge Elvis Pompilio. Underneath that a group picture and on the right there’s a general view of the exhibition, a pictue of my hat and a picture of myself with judge Elvis Pompilio. Finally a lovely picture of the Denfords: Nigel, Alice and Carole.

On the group picture above you can see, standing: Beth Simpson, Ani Stafford-Townsend, NamQ Park, Emmy Jaarsma, Dirk-Jan Korstchot, Jill Simpson, Les Incroyables (Felix Weber, Dirk Seegmüller) and Cristina de Prada. Seating: Elvis Pompilio and Carole Denford from the Hat Magazine.

These are the hats of the winner, Dutch milliner from The Hague, Emmy Jaarsma:

The hats of my friends from Germany, Felix and Dirk, Les Incroyables, who won a shared 2nd prize:

The hats of Kerrie Ann Meaton-Baker from Australia:

And the hats of the rest of the finalists:

All in all it was a lovely experience and I’m really happy I got to be in the final and meet all these lovely people!

Oh, I almost forgot to include the sketch for the hat that got to the final! Here it is:

Here is the bubble cap:

Here is the sketch:

This cap design just came to my mind after seeing lots of beautiful 60’s hats on books and magazines. With all my designs for the competition I wanted to do something new, completely original, and not a copy of something I had seen. The truth is I have never liked 60’s hats. In my mind that era was the swan’s song of hats, with hats being slaves to the crazy hair-do’s of the time. But while researching to make the hats for the competition I came across many extravagant and fun designs that made me change my mind. Perhaps it has also to do with the fact that the 60’s are inspiring today’s fashion more and more and I’m on that wavelength too.

You may feel the need to remind me that the theme for the competition is La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini’s film that premiered in Italy in February 1960), and that the hats there tended more towards 50’s looks that 60’s. Well, that is up for discussion since many hats from the film were pretty adventurous and outrageous, but not only that, the competition called for 50’s and 60’s inspired hats. So there you have it. That is why I came up with this design.

I like my hats to look as good on the inside as they do on the outside, so here you can see the lining of the cap made with a gorgeous vintage kimono silk (disclaimer: no kimonos were harmed in the making of this hat, the fabric comes from an unused  vintage bolt). I interfaced the silk with heavy iron on interfacing to get that structured look also on the inside.

The first step to making this hat was creating the pattern. It is a totally new design and I didn’t know anything like this, so I had to make it from scratch and my favorite method for that is making a plasticine model of the hat (modeling clay that does not harden) and from there make the pattern pieces. It’s not the first time I’ve done this and shared it with you, you can check it out here: flat pattern out of a 3D shape

[THERE IS MORE!! This is a long post with many pictures, click on the MORE button below to see it all]

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This is my multipurpose design, the Giorno/Sera (Day/Night) hat. It’s a hat that works as a sun hat with a wide brim, but which can be used as an evening hat by removing the brim and attaching a veil.

Here is the sketch of the hat (and yes, I sketched that not having a clue how I was going to solve the issue of the removable brim and veil!!):

Two of my projects for the competition were made with sewn straw braid. The reason is that I love the possibilities of sewing “straw” braid by machine and the wonderful final look. It helps too that I recently took at course at the Hat Museum/Atelier of Chazelles-sur-Lyon that was a real eye opener in what concerns the use of a hat braid sewing machine, with top notch teacher and wonderful person Jean-Pierre Tritz. Here is a picture of us students with the much admired Jean-Pierre Tritz (he’s 4th from the left, I’m 2nd from the left). I cannot recommend highly enough this course and this teacher: he is THE MAN.

Here is the picture of the finished hat assembled as EVENING hat (the straw used is Starbright):

The front angle on the hat was made by sewing the braid closer together on that side. Little by little the right angle is achieved.

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My friend Montez (Susan Murphy) who writes the wonderful blog Chapeau du Jour sent me an email on March 12 telling me about the Hat Magazine competition themed “La Dolce Vita” to be judged by milliner Elvis Pompilio and encouraging me to participate (I have every issue of the Hat Magazine, but I had completely missed the article about the competition!).

In order to participate on the competition I had to draw 6 designs of hats and send them off to the Hat Magazine by the end of March, so I only had two weeks to work on them, but I embraced the project and managed to finish them in time.

My life would have been much easier if I had first made the hats and then sketched them, but there was no time so I draw the hats out of my imagination (which proved to be quite a challenge later on).

Here is the announcement at The Hat Magazine of the 12 milliners who moved on to Round 2:

I was lucky to be one of the 12 milliners that made it to the Round 2, and I was instructed to make 3 specific hats out of the 6 sketches. Everything moved really fast after that because of the many things going on in my life at that time (co-organizing Barcelona’s Hat Parade -Passejada amb Barret-, giving hat making lessons, a trip abroad) and I had to work really hard again to meet the deadline for the finished hats, but it sure was fun!

The second round was judged this past June 21st by Elvis Pompilio and Sylvie Pourrat and her team (from Premiere Classe). They selected 9 milliners who will be showing hats for the final judging on September 4 (one of my hats will be there!).

These are two of the the three sketches that were selected for me to turn into actual hats (the hat that will be exhibited in Paris will remain a secret for now!!):

These are the other three sketches (I am better at making hats than at sketches, I promise you).

This is all for now. Pictures and insight into the making of two of the hats soon!!