How to make a couture hat, Vol. I

This is my instructor Prudence showing Laura how to make leaves.

Prudence is a charming eccentric British lady who makes hats for the fashion shows for Vivienne Westwood, Lacoste, Yves Saint Laurent, etc. She is absolutely wonderful. She is one of those very few and far between craftsmen who carries the knowledge of a very old trade and takes her time to make everything so couture and so perfect. When she speaks, everything is "little" and "lovely." "Take your little bias strip to the little iron and give it a little press and be very careful not to press the fold because we want that to have a nice little curve in it. Oh, do you have a little pin? Ok, yes, lovely. That's just lovely." She's also one of those wonderful people who know all the little stories behind everything. For instance, she told us that flappers are not called flappers because of their fringy dresses. The girls of the flapper generation, when they were young used to wear big huge bows on top of their heads and when they walked the bows would flap in the wind and everyone would make fun of these little "flapper" girls, and when they grew up and changed their style, the nickname stuck. And do you know why men have buttons on their cuffs? It's because during the war many soldiers got ill and had runny noses and they'd wipe their noses on their sleeves, and when Napoleon saw this he thought it utterly disgusting, so he had buttons put on all their cuffs so that it would hurt if they tried to wipe their nose on it. Then everyone thought that buttoned cuffs were a Napoleonic fashion statement, and they followed his trend; and it stuck.

Laura making little leaves for her little hat.


So lovely.

Ok time to make a hat. Gather your millinery supplies, your sketch, and find an apron.

Step 1: take a piece of heavily starched millinery canvas, dampen it and stretch it over a wooden form. Pin it in place. The pins all have to go right into the wood, so this was a difficult skill to master, and when I finished my arms were covered in layers of sticky starch.

Step 2: Blow dry until completely stiff

And remove the pins (as demonstrated by Aaron)

This is called "blocking" your base.

Step 3: Mark the shape of your little hat and cut it out very neatly. Oh lovely.

Step 4: Fuse "stayflex" (fusible interfacing - everything has a different name here) to the top of your little hat, and sew millinery wire just inside the edge.

Step 5: Stretch a piece of fluffy damet (no idea what that's called in the states) over the hat and stitch it around the edge.

Oh lovely.

The damet gives it a sort of quality body, so it doesn't feel flimsy.

Step 6: Stretch your fabric over the base and stitch in place.

Ta da! The beginning :)

Step 7: Drape your little bias piece in little ruffles. To accomplish the sort of careless rumpled-up look is much more time-consuming than you would think.

and tack carefully into place with a tailor's tack.

Next week, flowers and eventually a veil :)