I studied millinery in 1999 and have picked it up again in 2020 with a series of Statement courses at Enmore TAFE. from individual workshops to a full year course, I've learnt from Janelle Rayner, Penelope Gervaise, Tracy Wells, Neil Grigg, Carole Maher, Philip Rhodes, Catherine Kelly, Margaret Gill.
Hattember 2021: The Places We Will Go
Artist's statement: Today it’s not hard to imagine that the decadence of materials and colours used in the 1920s might have been a response to surviving the Spanish Flu, as much as any war. When we can again be close to other people indoors, we may well wish to wear something similarly dramatic yet small, as we remember how to both dress up and let people close. This piece fits the bill, and with the comfortable balance and the closeness of the brim, especially on the right hand side, it is as appropriate for dancing the Tango as for eating out or visiting a gallery! Materials: Parasisal hood (provided); petersham; feathers in pale blue (provided), teal and purple; beaded fringe; floristry tape; PVA as stiffener; thread. Did I win a prize? nope. Am I pleased with what I achieved on two days' work? definitely! Do I think this fits the theme better than most of the other amazing but not-so-wearable submissions? Yeah, but they're all amazing anyway, so go check them out at hattember.com - or fb once that link gets taken down, since only winners seem to be kept in the site's gallery. |
I signed up for another Hattember months ago, but it's a little different working on a hat that is competing with my tafe work, rather than having the competition piece double as an assignment! I missed the deadline, but it was extended a few days, so I got this done very, very quickly. Once I got over my annoyance at the uninspiring colour I was allocated (they do like to test me with neutrals!) I gathered armfuls of contrasting trims and made a callout online for opinions on the colour combinations. This one was the clear favourite - to the point that I was about to discard it as the safe option! In the end, it was the one that came together the best - since I didn't have time for risky design involving cutting the parasisal, I was mostly limited to fairly traditional small-brimmed and cloche shapes suggested by the raw materials. With bicornes on the brain, thanks to recent work on eighteenth century costume, I couldn't not play with a '20s bicorne with tassels or feathers spilling out of one point, and I really like how the weight of the beads pull the point into place. It's nothing as showy as an oversized, gravity-defying fascinator, but it's certainly no plain sunhat (though I really would have liked a brim - it still feels wrong to make a straw that is completely useless against the sun).
That purple petersham was awfully narrow, so it doesn't bind the edge like you'd expect - I attached it with a narrow lap seam on the inside, and folded the majority down to hand sew to the outside. Once that was in place I was committed to my materials, but the shape I'd pinned into the straw hadn't survived the process. All through that final night before the deadline, I kept reblocking and hand shaping, trying to make the original shape work, or a dozen others, but nothing seemed to go. Sometime in the early morning I was thinking about going back to the start and trying a completely new design, when something, somehow, settled into place. I made up my tassels, sewed everything together, made up the feathers and got it all together without any more major pitfalls. Strangely enough, the final product is far closer to its original design than I'm used to - My millinery often bears no resemblance at all to my drawings and research images, but this is exactly what I had in mind, but for one extra tassel instead of the folded and feathered edge trim! Come the afternoon, I had to stop or miss the deadline after all, so I didn't have time to finish stiffening the crown so it would stay as I blocked it, and the inside isn't finished. It's wearable as it is, but it probably doesn't look much good on a stand, and the petersham I earmarked for the inside is one of the required materials! It also won't last as well as it should like this, so even though it's so hard to prioritise the little details on something mostly finished, I'll do my best to make sure I follow up when I get it back from the competition! |
buntal capeline, fully machine sewn, which was tricky but fast. Pintucked crease, tilted brim, natural edge. The ridges around the brim seem to be holding it up without wire - we'll see how well it lasts. This is going to be my everyday hat for a while!
Dyed green in my first attempt at dying straw! I'm thrilled at the different colours produced on the different materials. |
The red sides are block printed in burgundy with a 15th century pattern (according to Racinet and the internet) that I adjusted, made continuous and cut from lino; the cream centre is heavily beaded with pearl buttons! The foundation is three layers of buckram blocked over a hand-carved polystyrene block, plus a wire frame for strength.
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15th century escoffion with wired veil, on display at Enmore Tafe.
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Assembled for assessment, there's more I want to do to it when I get it back. If you compare my original design and research in the document below, you'll see it's currently missing the pearl edging around the sides - I printed, cut, folded and curved bias binding from the red fabric, and was working on making visually even spaced holes in the curved bias strip, inserting the buttons, folding their shanks in and sewing them all down. Hopefully I can make a better jig to space the holes, because the bias is not just decorative: without it, I've had to fold the red edges under and sew them down neatly, which isn't compatible with pulling on the edges to manipulate the bias of the fabric around the curves properly, leaving a smooth contour but plenty of visible stitching and a raw edge that would need cover.
Mask made in one day for the David Graeber Memorial Carnival - two layers of sinamay blocked directly to my face with water. The red layer is slightly more shaped than the orange underneath, which helps it retain the nose contour despite remaining extremely flexible. Edged by hand with fluoro 'bias' which is actually a knit!
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Materials Used:
Provided: sinamay, grosgrain, veiling Haberdashery: wire, thread Additional: Silk Abaca
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Third place in Hattember 2020, Novice category! The brief was to make a hat using the materials pictured, with up to three additional materials: I only added the purple Silk Abaca. It took months and a ridiculous amount of hand sewing to wrangle everything into shape!
(The model for the three professional photos taken by the competition is Kiersten Duke. No, it doesn't quite sit properly as you can't adjust your hair out of your massive bun in the middle of a one-day photoshoot of ~60 hats, so I've also included a completely unprofessional snap of me, so you can see it worn correctly!)
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Artist's Bio:
Kate first studied millinery in 1999 and has only returned to the craft in 2020, backed by twenty more years of other making and repair skills. They delight in bright colours, enjoy coordinating limited palettes of materials, can’t seem to make anything uncomplicated and are passionate about ethical making, considering issues such as cruelty-free, earth-safe local materials, waste reduction, slow fashion and the revival of old skills. |
Artist's Statement:
This piece was designed for people who don’t believe they have the time, the confidence or the hair to do justice to dramatic millinery. With a silhouette out of the Eighteenth Century and fully hand sewn with attention to detail such as the avoidance of square textures by individually blocking each layer of cream sinamay at 60° to the next, this is no apologetic headwear, however it is as comfortable as a well worn sunhat. The wide, curved backstrap distributes the fit while the full head of Silk Abaca hair entirely covers the wearer’s own hair or lack thereof, with room to contain long hair above the backstrap. There’s no need to pin, poke, adjust and learn how to maintain the perfect angle, as the asymmetry is built in to a stable overall shape. |
Three vintage hats I've revamped, changing as little as possible. The brown isn't actually fur, it's a furry fabric over a blocked net base. It was always too small for me but it's now wearable, which is exciting! The black is a fine fur felt that only needed a steam and a new headlining. The blue had some moth damage, but a wash, steam and slight reshape has done wonders. The wash made the label a little blurrier, but the blocking was so dramatic that the shape survived, even the deep pointy bit to the side! I may still wire it up, when I'm a little more confident that I've figured out how it was supposed to sit. It's on the list...
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Apparently $550 is a reasonable price for this simple hat made of the bare minimum of materials! I'm not sure I can stomach that, but I'm still recovering from being told in 1997 that I should charge my sewing at $10/hour or no one will ever buy anything I make. Feminized labour force, outsourced consumerism and all that... so far the answer has been to not look too closely and not even try to sell the things I make, but I couldn't say it's really a good answer!
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Flowers on a tulle base - worn for several Mardi Gras floats and other events, remade a couple of times as I borrowed flowers for other purposes!
Image from 2015 - I think this was the original version. |
I guess this also counts as millinery! Hat and matching skirt costume commissioned by a friend for Sydney Mardi Gras in 2007. The hat is built on a lampshade frame, with hand coloured fabric and flowers.
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Millinery from 1999: teal fur felt with ostrich feather and vintage net; remodeled vintage straw with khaki and red trim; wide brimmed straw with yellow trim; red and white pieced fabric bonnet with removable tie; cream felt with emu feathers, if I remember correctly; flat fabric beret in polyester; asymmetric shaped fabric beret in wool. See the tags peeking out in some places! This is where my label comes from - I needed something, so I anglicised my middle name and never looked back! Well, I've worried many times about the appropriateness of using such a femme moniker, but it hasn't been replaced yet...
I never took photos at the time, so this is what they look like now that I've pulled everything out. I'm pretty sure all that's missing is the two or three more berets I made for my grandmother. The net on the teal cloche has degraded, right at the centre front, but I've recently found the rest of the piece, so someday I'll replace it. To improve it, I'll probably wire it, or stiffen it if I can do that without making it brittle. It won't happen soon, as I'm reluctant to mess with my precious lining to remove the old net!
I never took photos at the time, so this is what they look like now that I've pulled everything out. I'm pretty sure all that's missing is the two or three more berets I made for my grandmother. The net on the teal cloche has degraded, right at the centre front, but I've recently found the rest of the piece, so someday I'll replace it. To improve it, I'll probably wire it, or stiffen it if I can do that without making it brittle. It won't happen soon, as I'm reluctant to mess with my precious lining to remove the old net!