Retail Line: Strip-straw visored cloches

[labricoleuse]

I mentioned in my prior post that one of my projects this summer is to do a retail line of millinery for the new boutique The School for Style, which opens May 25th (Saturday!) and will feature a range of fashion and home goods made by independent artists. In addition to the fascinators, i'm also doing a couple of styles of full-size hats. Today's images are of a series of five visored cloches.

When i teach millinery class, i give the students a handout from a 1920s fashion magazine called "Five Ways to Trim the Same Hat," which shows exactly that: the same base shape with five drastically different kinds of trim on it. We talk about how when you look at a hat design, you look first at what the base shape is, then what the trim is on that shape. I've always loved this concept of millinery design and so i decided to run with this idea for these hats i'm sharing today, all of which have the exact same base shape--a spiral-stitched strip straw cloche-y visored cap.

See? Here's the header image from my handout. Very different looks, but all the same base hat!



This shows you the base hat shape really well from both side and front views. This one is trimmed with a three-color silk jacquard band and a meteor garniture from a coordinating ribbon and button.


Same base hat in navy straw, this one with an arrow garniture in two widths of grosgrain!


The same base hat in brown, trimmed with crossed ribbons screen-printed with 19th century advertisements, and two antique covered buttons rimmed in black velvet.


Natural straw version trimmed with a multicolor grosgrain hitch motif and two vintage buttons.



Orange straw and--no lie--an elephant tassel. Seriously. Look at some pictures of super-dressed-up processional elephants and you will see variations of this tassel hanging off their ears and headdresses.

So there they are--my straw collection, the same basic hat but trimmed out for five VERY different personalities!

Comments

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

Where oh where did you get your hands on an elephant tassle?!? I love the look of it. I'd wear the heck out of that hat!

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

I was at some conference, i think in Athens GA, for theatre costumers, and we visited a random import shop. They had one double-ended elephant tassel that was on super discount and i bought it without any clue what i would do with it, only knowing that i loved it and at some point i would figure out what i meant to use it for. Then, earlier this week, i was like, WHY DID I THINK I COULD DO AN ORANGE HAT? WHAT CAN I PUT ON IT? And then i was like, hi, this is what i can use that for. (I should add that most of these hats are one of a kind because the trimmings are just random things i have collected over the years.)