The Hat Shop NYC
Jun. 28th, 2008 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labricoleuseOne of the things i wanted to do this summer was visit the Hat Shop, an independent boutique in Soho featuring the work of over 30 local milliners. Last Sunday, I went and checked it out!
One of the most exciting hats to see in the shop was the initially unassuming-looking water hyacinth straw sun hat by Australian milliner Maya Neumann. The saleswoman showed my friend and i how, with a spritzing of water from a nearby spray bottle, the hat could be reshaped into a variety of different styles by simply folding a fedora-like pinch into the crown or dimpling a divot, or bending a pleat or three into the brim--the hat easily and instantly reshaped, but then another healthy misting and it was easily remolded into its initial dome-crown flat-brim shape. She told us that the Hat Shop's owner, Linda Pagan, had worn a water hyacinth hat across Thailand, crushing it into her bag and freshening it with water whenever she wanted to wear it. She also would apparently submerge it in a river when hiking in remote areas, then put it on, whereupon it served to quickly cool her off as the water evaporated from the hat. Pretty exciting material!
I spent a lot of time agonizing over whether to buy a cloche by Egg Cup Designs, and eventually purchased a brilliantly-designed hat made by Abigail Aldridge, a NYC milliner who apparently doesn't exist on Google(!).
the hat
oblique view
the hat squashes flat for travel
Doesn't it have a nice vintage shape? The tip of the crown and the brim are made of spiraled soutache cord, and the sideband of the crown is vented, made from overlapping zig-zagged wide millinery grosgrain. There is a wire at the edge of the brim but otherwise it is a fairly soft-shaped hat. I just loved the vented ribbon sideband and may experiment with my own variations on this design, perhaps with a straw tip and brim, or covered buckram.
All in all, i highly recommend checking this boutique out if you are ever in NYC and are a fan of creative modern couture millinery. There are hats for all tastes, occasions, and budgets. Well, actually, i take that back--there are no truly cheap mass-produced hats for sale there; i think the most inexpensive that i saw was in the $75-$100 range, but in the realm of handmade couture millinery, that's inexpensive.
And now, my obligatory random street photography:
hidden Mary in my neighborhood
crazy van
carving over a doorway
string trio of small girls
mural
more of the same mural
street carnival
carny ride detail
incongruously located carny attraction
in the midst of the carnival is this enormous Saint Anthony the Great,
who is apparently the patron saint of wandering mendicants and people with herpes?
"step right up, everyone's a winner"
I'm hyper-busy these days, what with working some overtime on Shrek *&* maintaining my one-day-a-week job at the millinery studio, but i'm hoping to have a couple good posts coming up soon, particularly one on some general hat topics...
One of the most exciting hats to see in the shop was the initially unassuming-looking water hyacinth straw sun hat by Australian milliner Maya Neumann. The saleswoman showed my friend and i how, with a spritzing of water from a nearby spray bottle, the hat could be reshaped into a variety of different styles by simply folding a fedora-like pinch into the crown or dimpling a divot, or bending a pleat or three into the brim--the hat easily and instantly reshaped, but then another healthy misting and it was easily remolded into its initial dome-crown flat-brim shape. She told us that the Hat Shop's owner, Linda Pagan, had worn a water hyacinth hat across Thailand, crushing it into her bag and freshening it with water whenever she wanted to wear it. She also would apparently submerge it in a river when hiking in remote areas, then put it on, whereupon it served to quickly cool her off as the water evaporated from the hat. Pretty exciting material!
I spent a lot of time agonizing over whether to buy a cloche by Egg Cup Designs, and eventually purchased a brilliantly-designed hat made by Abigail Aldridge, a NYC milliner who apparently doesn't exist on Google(!).
the hat
oblique view
the hat squashes flat for travel
Doesn't it have a nice vintage shape? The tip of the crown and the brim are made of spiraled soutache cord, and the sideband of the crown is vented, made from overlapping zig-zagged wide millinery grosgrain. There is a wire at the edge of the brim but otherwise it is a fairly soft-shaped hat. I just loved the vented ribbon sideband and may experiment with my own variations on this design, perhaps with a straw tip and brim, or covered buckram.
All in all, i highly recommend checking this boutique out if you are ever in NYC and are a fan of creative modern couture millinery. There are hats for all tastes, occasions, and budgets. Well, actually, i take that back--there are no truly cheap mass-produced hats for sale there; i think the most inexpensive that i saw was in the $75-$100 range, but in the realm of handmade couture millinery, that's inexpensive.
And now, my obligatory random street photography:
hidden Mary in my neighborhood
crazy van
carving over a doorway
string trio of small girls
mural
more of the same mural
street carnival
carny ride detail
incongruously located carny attraction
in the midst of the carnival is this enormous Saint Anthony the Great,
who is apparently the patron saint of wandering mendicants and people with herpes?
"step right up, everyone's a winner"
I'm hyper-busy these days, what with working some overtime on Shrek *&* maintaining my one-day-a-week job at the millinery studio, but i'm hoping to have a couple good posts coming up soon, particularly one on some general hat topics...
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-28 02:11 pm (UTC)Nice capture of the pirate/funeral home, too.