Last week was the last class of the millinery course that my friend Nina Pawlowsky was giving at Escola Massana in Barcelona. There was a celebration dinner and I was invited because I was a substitute teacher for one class (and some of the students are followers of this blog!). I had a great time, and it was fun to be there with these wonderful ladies, all of us with our hats on, of course.

On the picture above you can see Nina (the one holding the flowers) and her students (one holding a 2 piece cork block made in class). They were very very happy with the course, very sad it was over, and I must say they were very good students to work with.

The Massana School, one of the centers where Nina gives classes, is a center of art and design belonging to the Town Hall of the City of Barcelona. It is placed in a beautiful historical building on the Gothic quarter (Hospital de la Santa Creu) and was founded in 1929 thanks to Agusti Massana’s legacy, a well known patissier and philanthropist. Unfortunately their website is available only in Catalan language, which is something I find absurd at many, many levels, but I’m not going to bore you with my rantings about that.

The 2009-2010 course will be even more interesting because instead of being just one course lasting two semesters it’s going to be divided in two different courses, both lasting 60 hours, one about hatmaking in general (starting mid-October) and the other one about fascinators and turbans (starting beginning of March). Nina is a very experienced milliner and speaks perfect English so if anyone reading this blog is interested in joining these courses and needs help inscribing just let me know. Inscription is from 2 to 10 September and from 18 to 28 January.

I sprayed a sisal straw cone (a “second” I bought at the Kopka sale) with water in order to block it  on a vintage cloche block but as I was manipulating it (and wondering which was the right side) I became fascinated with the shapes it was taking, as if it had a life of its own, and finally decided to shape it by hand and skip the blocking altogether.

It was talking to me, and I listened.

I folded the edge under twice over itself for a neat edge finish and adjusted the final shape on top of a cork head, to make sure it would sit comfortably on the head.

I applied a coat of straw stiffener (the chemical stinky type), but it was too thick (the bottle must have stayed open too long at some point) and in some areas it left a white film on the straw when it dried. I had to spend a couple of hours, in panic, rubbing those spots with a cloth soaked in alcohol until I finally managed to clean it and then I reapplied stiffener (from a different bottle!). It has a nice varnish shine (which can become a problem when applying this kind of stiffener because you lose the natural look) but in this case I believe it looks good.

This is the raw material:

The hat is finished on the inside with a grosgrain ribbon, and as you can see on the picture below I had to pleat the ribbon on one spot to make it stay flat (on second thought the ribbon should have been joined there, duh!). The hat is comfortably kept on the head thanks to an elastic band (the ones you buy ready made finished with metal ferrules that slide between the stitches of the grosgrain) . Some detail pictures:

I love manipulating straw and felt and letting the material talk to me, it’s strangely therapeutic.

I also like the fact that every time the result is unique.

On June12 1991, 18 years ago, my father, Joaquín de Prada, died.

Two days from today, on the 14th of June, Peter’s father, Ewald Kooiman (like a father to me) would have celebrated his 71birthday. He died on the 25th of  January 2009.

These are sad days for us, made even worse by the fact that some of those who should have been comforting us, uncles and cousins on my father’s side, decided instead to soil his name and his memory by dragging it through the courts. To those people I say, like my brother does, STAY AWAY FROM MY BLOG, this is not for you.

But what I really want to do is to thank the many who want to honor the memory of my father and of Peter’s father and who join us in remembering these loving, intelligent men who left such a void after their deaths.

Dad I miss you terribly. Mom, we’re with you.

Ewald, we are still trying to come to terms with your death. We miss you more than you could ever imagine.

*******************************************

El 12 de junio de 1991, hace 18 años, murió mi padre, Joaquín de Prada

En dos días, el 14 de junio, habría sido el 71 cumpleaños del padre de Peter (como un padre para mí), Ewald Kooiman. Murió el 25 de enero de 2009.

Estos son días tristes para nosotros y todavía más tristes por el hecho de que personas que deberían estar consolándonos, mis tíos y primos/as por parte de mi padre, han preferido dedicar su tiempo a ensuciar el nombre y la memoria de mi padre en los juzgados. A esas personas les digo, como dice mi hermano, NO OS QUIERO EN MI BLOG, no es para vosotros.

Lo que sí quiero hacer es dar las gracias a los muchos que quieren hacer homenaje a la memoria de mi padre y la del padre de Peter y que se unen a nosotros en recordar a estos hombres inteligentes y cariñosos que han dejado un gran vacío tras sus muertes.

Papá, te echo de menos muchísimo. Mamá, estamos contigo.

Ewald, todavía estamos intentando asimilar tu muerte. Te echamos de menos mucho más de lo que tu pudieras llegar a imaginar.

One of the many things I find amazing about hat making is the fact that those casual bumps and folds that certain hats styles have are anything but casual and really owe that look to the artistic carving of the block maker.

This is very obvious when looking at this vintage block. If you look at the finished hat you might think that the straw has been gathered to form the pleats, and actually looking at the block it gives this strange impression of folded wood because the quality of the carving is so good!

To reinforce the folds I used reed, also around the head entry to keep the straw evenly tight. I figured out that reed would be great for this purpose myself, only to find out later that reed is what milliners have always used, talk about reinventing the wheel!… You can buy reed at basket making suppliers, and if you need the reed to take a particular curve you should soak it for a while in water which makes it very pliable and easy to bend into shape. I’ve used short pins to hold the reed in place.

The material I have used is straw braid that comes sewn into a cone. These cones are very stretchy and just perfect for this kind of detailed block. After cutting out the excess I did a zigzag stitch all around to avoid the whole thing coming undone. Although I’m one in favor of hand sewing, if the job is going to be done better by machine sewing I see no point in doing it by hand. This is the case with the sweatband because the material is folded under so the underside stitches of the sweat band will not be seen from the outside.

The only trimming on the hat is a vintage button (a gift of my friend Nina), it looks very nice although because it has a shaft it kind of wobbles a bit instead of staying nicely close to the hat.

This beret, in addition to looking nice is extremely comfortable (I can lean back with no problem which means I don’t have to take it out in the car). I’m happy!

Peter and Joaquín got me this wonderful Poupée (a milliners working head, also known as a marotte) for my birthday. A Poupée is a stylized representation of a head . It’s made out of papier-maché and covered in canvas. A head like this is wonderful to do hand modeled hats, draped turbans and generally to get a feel of how a hat is going to look on a person. The canvas (calico) covering allows you to pin as you work along.

These heads get treasured for generations and never get thrown away. Milliners use them even if they’re all worn and weathered, that only adds to their personality, and they still do their job wonderfully.

In an interview in 2007, extraordinary milliner Stephen Jones said, when asked what he thought to be an essential gadget: “The thing I use every day is a poupée, a fabric head. I build shapes on it, using any material at all; it can be a piece of velvet or a tissue - anything can look great as a hat”. He has also designed a poupée inspired hat with beautiful black felt eyes and red mouth as part of the collection of hats to be sold at the V&A shop inspired by the exhibition.

You can still find one of these heads, if you’re lucky, second hand. Nina has a gorgeous vintage one (pictures left).

If you cannot (like I couldn’t) find an old one, there are fortunately still a couple of manufacturers that make them new, following the old methods and using old molds, so they look exactly the same as the old ones (ok, almost the same… new ones are cleaner). Mine is made by Siegel Stockman (same as Nina’s), a french manufacturer of forms and mannequins that started business in the 19th century.

The difference between these heads and the wig canvas blocks that are easy to find on the internet is the fact that the poupée has a chin (and nose!) while the wig blocks do not have them.

When you buy a new head it it comes “blank”, cream canvas, no eyes, no mouth. Traditionally these poupées got their eyes and mouth hand painted (like the one Nina bought), and sometimes even glued in felt, although there are people who prefer to keep them “plain”.

I would like my poupée to have features, and the day I got her I took a pair of scissors, some black cardboard and I cut out for her a couple of 50’s eyes and a little mouth, just to see how it would look. Here cardboard features are temporarily pinned in place which gives her a kind of voodoo look I’m afraid, but it must be said that she looks gorgeous with features on!!! … Painting permanent features would be great, but one false move with the brush and… I don’t even want to think about it!

Let me know what you think about my new friend, and also let me know if you have any suggestions concerning the features and how to paint them.

Have you got your own poupée? If so it would be great if you could share a picture, I would love to meet her!

Update 28 May: I have created a Flickr group called Millinery Heads so everyone can join and share the pictures of their poupées, mannequin heads or even hat stands! Join in:  http://www.flickr.com/groups/millinery_heads/

Here is a collage of pictures taken by Andrea Fisbein during the recent Passejada amb Barret. They are beautiful close ups of some of the people that took part in our parade, and their hats of course! (all pictures are from Andrea, except two of the pictures -the one of Peter and me, and of Gloria Gratacós and my mom, those were taken by my brother).

I want to thank Andrea Fisbein for sharing her pictures with us, if you click on the collage you will be able to see all her pictures.

I also want to thank Salvador Blanco Heredia who has sent his beautiful pictures of the passejada (click here to see his pictures), and Paco Peralta, who also shared his pictures of the event with us through his blog.

My mother has been feeling under the weather for quite a long time now, and although I really wanted her to come to our “Passejada amb Barret” (Walk with a hat) I was not sure she would be able to make it.

Finally she made a big effort and joined us, and I arranged special transportation for her, a rickshaw bike that carried her and some delighted little friends when she was too tired to walk.

She asked me for a hat for the event, one that would show her blue hair, so I came up with something (in inspiration quite similar to last years creation for her) mounted on a head band and with the look of casually piled up ribbon and wire mesh. I did this hat (a whimsy you may call it) in 6 hours on the evening before, so I hope you will take that into account when you look at it.

The head band underneath is a simple thin metallic one, and I covered it with black elastic velvet from Mokuba. The blue velvet ribbon on the other hand is vintage and has a thin wire embedded, and the wire mesh is a modern material very light and can be pulled and stretched.

I kept on twisting, turning, looking and positioning the wire and the velvet until I liked the position. Once everything was pinned I sewed the whole thing in place, bit by bit, very carefully, so as not to destroy the feeling of flow and airiness.

Halfway through the process I realized the whole thing was not stable and I was afraid that a gust of wind would make it tumble so I added a wire for stability. The wire runs as an inverted u inside the structure and finishes as a circle on the underside. Just that tiny circle sitting on the head gives lots of stability. Of the wire I only covered the under circle and painted with a blue felt tip pen the wire that runs through the structure to camouflage it.

So there you have it… considering the time frame available I’m happy of the result, but I must confess that the front view in the best. 

This year’s Passejada amb barret (Barcelona’s hat parade) has been a great success, in no small measure because of the cooperation of the Gratacós shop. The passejada started in front of  Gratacós, and they exceptionally opened their doors on a Sunday for a short while so that people that wanted to participate in the parade and had no hat could borrow one, and of course many of their clients could not resist such temptation!

The sun shined on us and we had a wonderful time, also this year the Passejada got a mention (with pictures) on the press (La Vanguardia) under the title Barcelona se pone Sombrero (Barcelona wears a hat).

Although it is possible to sew straw braid with an ordinary free-arm sewing machine (check out this ebook by Jane Smith if you want to know more) , when sewing narrower straw it is much easier to use a machine that has been designed for the purpose (like my Corsani, above in the picture). Much of what I’ve learnt about these machines has come from reading old patents, there’s a wealth of information there.

This is what makes these straw braid sewing machines different from your household machine:

1. They are chain stitch machines (just one thread, no bobbin)
2. They have a special guide system for feeding the braid and holding the work in place
3. The needle and plate are all the way to the left to make working easier
4. They are set on a special table with a big cutout on the middle front so there is space for the hat as it grows, and for you to manouver.

Some of these special machines have additional special features that were designed and patented by their inventors to make the sewing of straw easier.

To start, there is a mechanism that Willcox called in his patent a “vibrator”, and that has been implemented by every manufacturer afterwards. The mechanism is used when sewing the “button” of the hat (where the hat starts with a tight spiral). When sewing this small spiral the operator of the machine is forcing the straw because the curve is very tight, without this invention the straw can get damaged as the presser foot is pushing down on the straw when the operator is pulling. and it is very difficult to keep the work flat. This “vibrator” contraption is a very clever invention that lifts the presser foot as the needle goes down, pressing down again as the feeder goes into action, thus allowing the operator to easily turn the work.

Here is the text from the patent explaining the workings of the invention.

Another interesting invention is the lever that allows the tension of the thread to be easily changed to a tighter tension. This is useful because when one starts sewing the button of the hat (the center of the spiral) the stitch length shortens because of the tight angle at which one is sewing, that often causes loose loops on the underside of the work. Before this invention one had to manually change the tension, setting a tighter tension at the beginning and then stopping the work to set a looser tension as the work progresses. With this invention you can switch between a tigher and looser tension with the flick of a lever (without stopping the sewing).  Below are the drawings and explanation for this invention.

I also wanted to mention that there are essentially two types of straw sewing machines, those that do straight stitch, and those who sew in zig-zag. From looking at the patents I know that there were machines that did a hidden stitch, but those don’t seem to have survived the test of time because the ones in use today are the visible stitch ones, machines that are more than one hundred years old and are still (amazingly) working. The zig-zag machine on the other hand (some are still available in the market) allows one to sew edge to edge and avoid wasting material.

Soon I will write some more on the subject… stay tuned.

El próximo 19 de abril 2009 (domingo) te esperamos en Barcelona para dar un paseo con sombrero. Es la quinta edición de la “Passejada amb Barret”. Quedamos en frente de la tienda Gratacós (Paseo de Gracia con Diagonal) a las 12 del medio día. El paseo será a lo largo de Rambla Cataluña. Es la excusa que necesitabas para comprarte (o hacerte) un sombrero nuevo. Los participantes en este evento recibirán una chapa conmemorativa ¡Nos vemos!

Come to Barcelona and wear your hat! Next April 19th (Sunday) at noon we will wear our hats and take a stroll down Rambla Catalunya. This will be the fifth edition of the “Passejada amb Barret” (Walk with a hat), our version of the Easter Parade that takes place every year on the Sunday after Easter. This year we will be meeting in front of the shop Gratacós in the corner of  Diagonal and Passeig de Gracia. It’s the excuse you need to get (or make) a new hat. Those who participate will receive a commemorative button ¡See you!

El pròxim 19 d’ abril 2009 (diumenge) t’esperem a Barcelona per fer un tomb amb baret. És la cinquena edició de la “Passejada amb Barret”. Quedem al devant de la botiga Gratacós (Passeig de Gràcia amb Diagonal) a les 12 del mig dia. El passeig es fará per la Rambla de Catalunya. Es l’excusa que et calia per comprar-te (o fer-te) un barret nou. Els participants rebran una xapa commemorativa. Ens veiem!

Foto del año pasado… Pidture from last year… Foto de l’any passat…