labricoleuse | Retail Line: Fascinators!

This summer, one of my friends and favorite collaborators, Anne Kennedy, is opening a pop-up boutique in Williamstown, MA. Williamstown is not only Anne's home, but also home to the Williamstown Theatre Festival, where she frequently designs costumes. Anne's shop, The School for Style, opens May 25th and will feature a range of fashion and home goods made by independent artists.

When she asked me whether i'd be interested in creating a line of hat designs for the shop, i jumped at the chance! I've always had a vague interest in doing some retail millinery, but honestly, all i really want to do is make hats--i don't want to deal with everything else that goes along with launching a retail business or even an Etsy shop. But for Anne's shop? It sounded perfect! Come up with some cute hats, send them to her, and let her and her staff deal with actually selling them.

I can't make the hats at my studio at work--because the theatre is in residence on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, we're prohibited from using university facilities for personal moneymaking ventures. Luckily, I've done enough contract millinery that i do have a room in my house set up as a millinery studio, for freelance work and such. This week has been about reminding myself all the things i know from reading historical millinery texts--"You don't need a hat steamer! Use your tea kettle."

In thinking about this retail line, I considered who the customers of this boutique were likely to be: fairly well-off summer vacationers there for the theatre festival, and students from Williams College. I knew i would need to come up with styles that would appeal to different age groups, styles one might wear to a night at the theatre as well as styles one might wear to a bar-b-que or a picnic.

My first batch wound up being a collection of fascinators aimed at theatregoers.

Here is the view in my home millinery studio, with two hats in progress.
Get up, eat breakfast, walk into the next room and start making hats--now that's a great commute!

Part of what gives any retail item credibility is, does it actually look like a product? Or does it look like some home-made craft project? I keep a stock of these woven labels in my home millinery studio for labeling any custom work i do, if it is appropriate to do so. Here you see the labels put into some satin headbands for the fascinators which will be mounted on those.

Ribbon is screenprinted with ads from 19th century newspapers. Buckle is vintage Bakelite.

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This one is antique copper-thread ribbon and another Bakelite buckle, mounted on a pinstripe denim fascinator base with horsehair for attaching to the head.

Vintage spray of crossweave velvet leaves.

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Antique starburst ornament with periwinkle net cockade.

This one makes me smile! Vintage wool pompons with nautical-stripe grosgrain ornaments.

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Three colors of biot feathers and peacock herl, antique jeweled bouquet ornament, mounted on an orange satin bandeau.

So, those are a few examples of the fascinators i'm doing. Can you tell i'm counting on the popularity of Gatsby to drive fashion tastes this summer? I love this collection and would wear every single one of these to an opening night!

It's fun to negotiate how production for retail is different than for theatre. For example, i almost never use glues in theatrical millinery, because everything needs to be potentially taken apart, changed, retrimmed, recovered, what-have-you! For these though, I was able to use adhesives in some steps of the process, like installing the labels and reinforcing some areas of the trim. Everything is still secured by hand-stitching, in terms of the ornamentation, but glue added stability to some of the metal findings where too many stitches lashing them on would have been visible to a consumer (though it mightn't be an issue were these for stage).

Right now i'm working on a batch of straw cloches as well--more about those in a future post!