Millinery Project

Top hats, cocktail hats, wide brimmed hats, cloche hats, flat patterned hats, straw hats, wire-framed hats, felt hats...hats, hats, hats.

What a brilliant project this was. It gave us an introduction to all the basic types of hats; using felt hoods to make felt hats, flat patterned hats,straw-braid hats, wire-framed hats and buckram based hats. 

My personal aim was to try and make one of each type of hat.

Buckram base hat- Cocktail hat

This hat was made to go with the modern wedding dress made freelance in the summer before my second year. I had fabric left over from this dress and thought as it was a very simple dress in embellishment, design wise, this would compliment it very well. I was able to experiment with feather manipulation, beads and fabric flowers in this cocktail hat and was pleased with the finished outcome.

Straw braid and flat pattern hat- Regency Bonnet

This was a mixture of two types of hat for time limit reasons. This Bonnet was made to be worn with the green Regency dress made in a different, personal project. I machine sewed the straw braid into the curved shape for the bonnet and made the fabric back up  with the flat pattern from .....

This bonnet surprisingly quite quickly came together and introduced me to the technique of sewing straw braid. This bonnet goes much better with the dress than the previous make-shift one I pulled together from an old straw hat. Quite delectable. 

Felt Hood- Cloche

Felt hoods were an actual revelation to me. What an ingenious idea to felt over a hat block ready for a Milliner, such as myself, to make into any shaped hat. The hat I chose to make was a cloche out of the... book. I had to cut in two small slits and leave in a short pole to keep the holes wide enough to lace the bow into while it was drying over the hat block. 

Wire Framed Hat- Audrey Hepburn’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s black hat

I think this iconic hat grabbed me the first time I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's. In three words? I Love it. I can’t deny that I was slightly off on my sizing of the head band but nevertheless I learned a great deal while making this hat.Looking back I think I have to be very thankful to learn this technique as it really influenced and my construction methods in making the wings in my final project. A centuries old technique, it works so well that its barely been changed or developed at all.

The only hat I still need to try and make is a teardrop shaped sinamay hat.