Article # 15...Milliners; our unsung Artisans
Did you know that a great number of famous
fashion designers started in Millinery? Chanel,
Adolfo, Halston to name just a few. Yet there
have only been a handful of milliners who
attained fame with hatmaking alone Lilly
Dache being the most recognized. I find it
terribly sad that most milliners have fallen
into obscurity. To them I dedicate this short
article.
When I was a tiny girl our downtown had at
least three prominent millinery shops, and
every better department store had its own
in-house millinery salon. Custom hatmaking
was and is a highly skilled profession and
requires the touch of a sculptor. A blocked
hat begins as a shapeless fluted dome of
felted wool and fur fibers, straw or as a
starched buckram sheet. The unshaped material
must be steamed to become malleable. It is
then smoothed by hand over a wooden block
to create the crown. The brim is steamed
and shaped out of the remaining felt. Not
always easy! These newly formed pieces are
then left to “cure” for 24 hours. If the
hat has a buckram base, a design fabric is
used to cover it and a lining is usually
needed as well. The edge of the brim and
sometimes the crown edge needs to be wired
to hold its shape and this wire has to be
hidden either by folding over the felt edge
and stitching down or covering with millinery
grosgrain or bias fabric strips. Essentially
with a blocked hat the hatmaker is trying
to sculpt flat or amorphous material into
a permanent three-dimensional form.
Other types of hats may be sewn from a pattern
such as berets. Even these seemingly simple
hats require great skill to look well. In
order for shape to be created the hatmaker
must often ease without gathers, a longer
seam into a shorter one to create rounded
graceful edges. Another highly skilled form
of hatmaking is straw coiling this however
is a lost art since virtually all coiled
straws are now mass-produced by machine.
After the form is completed the milliner
then needs to trim.
The artistry of millinery trim is a subject
unto itself. Nowhere else in Fashion have
such creative liberties been taken. Flowers,
ribbons and feathers are most common but
some hatmakers really pushed the envelope.
The Bes-Ben Company experimented with trims
in the MOST unusual ways. They embellished
their simple forms with all manners of plastic
objects. I have a 1950s Bes-Ben hat, which
was made by coiling navy plastic tubing to
create the form then, trimmed with huge clear
Lucite buttons. Over history hats have been
trimmed with entire birds, model ships even
miniature buildings. Just recently I saw
a 1940s hat in a group antique shop with
a real squirrel skin (yes head and tail included)
spread flat over the crown as though it were
flying. I was horribly intrigued but couldn’t
bring myself to add this one to my collection!
During the 1930s Elsa Schiaparelli had great
fun with creating surreal headwear. Her most
famous piece being her shoe hat, yup, a hat
that looked like a shoe. Most milliners however,
seek to create flattering and wearable pieces.
I have entire books devoted to ribbon work
alone. Another book in my collection is from
the 1920s on how to create silk flowers.
Not just roses folks but lilies, chrysanthemums,
wisteria... you name it, every flower imaginable.
A good milliner must to be able to sew, sculpt
fabric and fabricate details out of countless
materials. All of this has to come together
to create a WEARABLE object. The vintage
hats I come across are a constant reminder
of the skill and creativity involved in hatmaking.
A profession that, in my opinion, deserves
a far greater position of honor in the realm
of fashion and it’s history.
Why the Passion?
My circuitous career started at Massachusetts
College of Art where in 1978 I obtained my
bachelors degree in sculpture. I had come
from a family of dressmakers and seamstresses
but aspired to something “greater”. At college
I created pieces such as rhinestone-studded
frying pans and furniture dressed in lace.
My favorite instructor suggested (gently)
that textiles or fashion might suit me better.
An idea I promptly dismissed.
I married and had three sons. While my children
were very young I attended courses at the
School for Fashion Design in Boston and supplemented
our income doing alterations, dressmaking
and hatmaking. Millinery was my passion.
By the time the kids were older and in school
I had built a small hatmaking and dressmaking
business in Boston. I was fond of dressmaking,
but creating beautiful hats was my creative
outlet. Circumstances changed and I have
since segued into the Vintage business. I
still create hats from time to time for myself
and am constantly rescuing and restoring
vintage hats. They are still my passion.