Millinery Class final projects, part one!

[labricoleuse]

My millinery class presented their final projects yesterday, so i've got some great hats to share pictures of!




Kaitlin Fara created this straw fedora with a single divot and a crown fold from polka-dot-knotted straw...


...inspired by this vintage research image of a 1970s fedora variation.


Kaitlin carved this block from blue roofing foam to make the hat.
The hat's band is made from a printed silk jacquard.









This gibus (collapsible opera top hat) was made by Adrienne Corral, who was...


...inspired by this contemporary hat by Topsy Turvy.

Adrienne's still collapses, even though it's got that giant trim element on the front, by use of a baby snap hidden behind it. Check it out!

Fun stuff! More to come, too...!

Comments

[madamekat.livejournal.com]

Fantastic hats!

Of course, I'm particularly a fan of the collapsible top hat. You are the perfect costuming "friend" (I put that in quotes as we don't actually know each other in real life, not because you aren't friendly!) to put a video of the mechanism up! You know just what we all want to see!

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And, you know, i always try to write blog posts which show what *I* would want to see, if i were reading about something and hadn't witnessed it. And dangit, if the hat collapses and re-pops, that's a video moment!

She salvaged the mechanism from a modern hat marketed toward stage magicians, and cited as "child size." It came with a plastic brim and covered in some sleazy poly jersey, which is fine for a stage magician's purposes, but Adrienne pulled all that off and rebuilt the hat.

She used the plastic brim to block a new buckram one, then covered the hat in silk faille and trimmed it in silk crossweave bias and satin ribbon. Super cute!

[queenortart.livejournal.com]

This is fabulous! You do inspire me to try stuff

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! That's such a joy to hear. :D

Great

[theevilchemist.livejournal.com]

That's so neat! How many students do you have? I'd love to learn how to make hats.

I love hats, b/c they really change your look. It's like getting a new hairdo every day. Now that I am getting older, my face is getting thinner so I actually look 1/2 way decent in hats

Hats off to you!
jv

Re: Great

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

The class is a graduate level class, with a maximum enrollment of six. So, slots are guaranteed to any costume production grad student in our program, and then any remaining ones i always have a waitlist for! This year i over-enrolled millinery by one student and had a class of seven.

And, thank you! Glad to know you are doing your part to bring hatwearing back. It's true, it's very much like getting a new hairstyle or color or whatever every day, if you have a collection of good hats!

[droxy.livejournal.com]

awesome. if i lived nearby i would so take lessons.

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

I really want to learn how to make a gibus. If it wasn't for that whole moving thing, I'd come take your classes.

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

You don't need to move and take my class to learn that! There is an excellent reference in print that you can buy, which tells step-by-step how they were made. It is a book called The Top Hat: An Illustrated History by Debbie Henderson, and in its appendices Henderson reproduces in full instructional literature that Hat Life Publications put out in the 1940s on the methods for making standard and collapsible toppers, to make sure that info wasn't lost. Pick up a copy and give it a go! It's the reference that Adrienne used to make hers.

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I'm putting it on the top of my Amazon list.

I'd still like to transfer into your program.

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

Oh no! It's out of print! Sigh.

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

Weird, i bought it this summer, brand new, from the Lockwood Mansion Museum's giftshop in Norwalk, CT. They had a ton of copies so perhaps give them a call if you can't find it used?

http://www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com/