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Today i'd like to post focusing on some highlights of the OTHER entries in the Stephen Jones Millinery Contest running over on Talenthouse. While I certainly appreciate your vote for my own entry, I encourage you also to vote for these great milliners as well! (Or really any of the entries you feel are particularly meritorious millinery designs. I'm more interested in advocating for millinery as an art form in general than cheerleading for my ownself in the popular vote!)
So, for these hats, all of them have something exciting going on in their design and/or construction that caught my eye as a designer and maker. Check them out, and please comment with links either to your own entries or your favorites among the others!
Cosmosis by Philomena Kwok
This design is fabulous, encasing the head and framing the face, interacting with the gaze of the wearer, and lighting itself from within! How does Ms. Kwok only have two votes?!
Spanish Harlem by Evetta Perry
Ms. Perry has used a laser-cut felt placemat to create this wonderful shape! She mentions the mantilla as an inspiration, but I also can see reminiscences of the fez, the bucket hat, miters and tall-crowned hats of many cultures. I also love how Ms. Perry has the medium doubling as the veil in a sense, with it coming down over the wearer's eyes. I would LOVE to see a side view of this piece. It's a great example of how a simple structure (conic section) can be very sophisticated and high-concept.
Polka Dot Paradise by Sarah Padgham
Ms. Padgham has made a buckram frame hat with a truly compelling shape inspired by the traditional top hat, and covered it in microfiber cleaning cloths. Really excellent design, beautifully executed in a fun unexpected material!
Sealed With a Twist by Sharon Bainbridge
Sharon has taken a grey mens trilby hat, and through a combination of reblocking, slashing, twisting, and sculpting, turned it into this incredibly joyful design. I'd totally wear this one to an opening night gala!
Wild Eye, by Jeanne Henzel of Joona
This is another one i want to actually wear to an opening night gala. Ms. Henzel gives a great overview of how she made the hat from cane, buckram, wire, and fabric, and has some interesting information about how she was inspired by false eyelashes. I can imaging exactly how this hat feels to the touch, and I love its textural spiny look.
Night Flight by Lydia Wall
This one treads the line on being inadmissible, since Jones stipulated "no fascinators," but i'd argue that it's not a fascinator because the sculptural element of the claw is so much more complex structurally than a typical fascinator base. It seriously gives me the swiveling fantods, but in the good way.
Wedding in Space by Lyudmyla Salvato
Why didn't *I* think about blocking sinamay on a motorcycle helmet? Though I don't really go anywhere now that i could wear this hat, fifteen years ago, you bet your ass I'd have worn it to a nightclub to go disco-dancing with drag queens or something.
Muscae Hat by Rachael Forbes
This one's inspired by a fly. The shapes are dramatic and unexpected, sounds like she's using interesting media, and the image itself is really well-styled in terms of the model's makeup. I wish there were a side view. It looks like entry made the same assumption i did, that when they gave the dimensions of the photo to send, that it was portrait instead of landscape. (The contest specs were a bit misleading in explaining how the photos should be oriented.) This is another hat i'd have worn to a nightclub 15 years ago, or ten years ago, and to be honest, i could probably come up with an event i could wear it to, now, too, but it'd be like, an art opening or something.
KiKU by Phillippe Urban
It's like he's drawing flowers in the air with straw braid. Brilliant! Imagine too what this one would look like worn by a model walking the runway, or moving through a room.
TURBULENCE (a state or condition of confusion, movement, or agitation, disorder) by Bellevari Timea
I love the mutability of this piece, the drama, the way the wearer controls the gaze of herself and her observer in a lot of ways, the political themes in the design, the variety of shots in the entry. Really excellent design here.
Currents of Light and Darkness by Morgyn Owens-Celli
I love the swirls and waves of this two-tone straw braid hat! The pouf of striped ostrich reminds me of the adornments of tricornes and bicornes, as does the shape a bit, but it's also quite different. Owens-Celli is involved with Strawbenders Ltd. as well, which supplies straw hats and braids.
Suspension Mohawk by Heather Huey
I'd love to see more views of this weird wire-and-leather headpiece. Seriously, look through the project galleries on Huey's website and tell me you aren't inspired!
So, for these hats, all of them have something exciting going on in their design and/or construction that caught my eye as a designer and maker. Check them out, and please comment with links either to your own entries or your favorites among the others!
Cosmosis by Philomena Kwok
This design is fabulous, encasing the head and framing the face, interacting with the gaze of the wearer, and lighting itself from within! How does Ms. Kwok only have two votes?!
Spanish Harlem by Evetta Perry
Ms. Perry has used a laser-cut felt placemat to create this wonderful shape! She mentions the mantilla as an inspiration, but I also can see reminiscences of the fez, the bucket hat, miters and tall-crowned hats of many cultures. I also love how Ms. Perry has the medium doubling as the veil in a sense, with it coming down over the wearer's eyes. I would LOVE to see a side view of this piece. It's a great example of how a simple structure (conic section) can be very sophisticated and high-concept.
Polka Dot Paradise by Sarah Padgham
Ms. Padgham has made a buckram frame hat with a truly compelling shape inspired by the traditional top hat, and covered it in microfiber cleaning cloths. Really excellent design, beautifully executed in a fun unexpected material!
Sealed With a Twist by Sharon Bainbridge
Sharon has taken a grey mens trilby hat, and through a combination of reblocking, slashing, twisting, and sculpting, turned it into this incredibly joyful design. I'd totally wear this one to an opening night gala!
Wild Eye, by Jeanne Henzel of Joona
This is another one i want to actually wear to an opening night gala. Ms. Henzel gives a great overview of how she made the hat from cane, buckram, wire, and fabric, and has some interesting information about how she was inspired by false eyelashes. I can imaging exactly how this hat feels to the touch, and I love its textural spiny look.
Night Flight by Lydia Wall
This one treads the line on being inadmissible, since Jones stipulated "no fascinators," but i'd argue that it's not a fascinator because the sculptural element of the claw is so much more complex structurally than a typical fascinator base. It seriously gives me the swiveling fantods, but in the good way.
Wedding in Space by Lyudmyla Salvato
Why didn't *I* think about blocking sinamay on a motorcycle helmet? Though I don't really go anywhere now that i could wear this hat, fifteen years ago, you bet your ass I'd have worn it to a nightclub to go disco-dancing with drag queens or something.
Muscae Hat by Rachael Forbes
This one's inspired by a fly. The shapes are dramatic and unexpected, sounds like she's using interesting media, and the image itself is really well-styled in terms of the model's makeup. I wish there were a side view. It looks like entry made the same assumption i did, that when they gave the dimensions of the photo to send, that it was portrait instead of landscape. (The contest specs were a bit misleading in explaining how the photos should be oriented.) This is another hat i'd have worn to a nightclub 15 years ago, or ten years ago, and to be honest, i could probably come up with an event i could wear it to, now, too, but it'd be like, an art opening or something.
KiKU by Phillippe Urban
It's like he's drawing flowers in the air with straw braid. Brilliant! Imagine too what this one would look like worn by a model walking the runway, or moving through a room.
TURBULENCE (a state or condition of confusion, movement, or agitation, disorder) by Bellevari Timea
I love the mutability of this piece, the drama, the way the wearer controls the gaze of herself and her observer in a lot of ways, the political themes in the design, the variety of shots in the entry. Really excellent design here.
Currents of Light and Darkness by Morgyn Owens-Celli
I love the swirls and waves of this two-tone straw braid hat! The pouf of striped ostrich reminds me of the adornments of tricornes and bicornes, as does the shape a bit, but it's also quite different. Owens-Celli is involved with Strawbenders Ltd. as well, which supplies straw hats and braids.
Suspension Mohawk by Heather Huey
I'd love to see more views of this weird wire-and-leather headpiece. Seriously, look through the project galleries on Huey's website and tell me you aren't inspired!
