Edwardian Hat

I unpacked my box of millinery stuff which has done a few travel rounds. London, Rome, London again and now Verona and there's still another box or 2 in London. I also left my precious notes and patterns  behind. Drats!!!

I've never been happy with this hat. It was my first Edwardian piece at the end of the semester and I 'cheated' a bit to save time.
(My Gran always said "the more hurry the less speed")

Instead of doing all the hat in stitched straw braid. I bought a ready made straw hat from Baxter and Hart and unpicked the crown. Then cut out a really large 'boater' shape using 2 layer of black buckram. About 25 cm in diameter.


The stupid thing I did was to make it perfectly round when heads are OVAL!! duh!

I discovered this when the crown was already made and didn't want to unpick it.

Then another not so bad 'cheat'
On the inside I cut a normal  head size in buckram, so it would sit on modern hair.
(I need to post a photo of the inside)

These hats were meant to sit on a huge
amount of hair.

Rule of thumb with historical hats. Research the hair as well the hat. The hair style comes first then the hat.
Again if I was doing this professionally today then I would not only have the performer's head measurement but check out who is doing the wigs.
Historically Edwardian hats look like there's a big drawstring 'bag' on the inside. And it was held in place with hatpins.



So I've decided to leave the hat as is and just trim it differently than the last time.

Ready to go! Watch this space ....................................

Janet and the Uncommercial Designer

I am originally from Ireland. I was born in Dublin but spent most of my summers in Kinsale, Co. Cork at my grandmother's house. My love of clothing and fashion came from my gran who made the most wonderful clothes in an age when women were at their most elegant - the 30s, 40s and 50s. I would look at old photos of my mum and my aunt modelling my grandmother's best creations. They would describe them to me in great detail, the fabric, the trim, and how gran made the pattern. My young and eager ears soaked it all up. Even though I wasn’t born in that era, our household was always about clothes, how they were made and what was good quality. When we went to department stores to buy clothes, both my mum and gran would advise me  to "always look on the inside" or "look at the hem". They both taught me about quality in clothing. 
By the time I was born, my grandmother had retired from making clothes professionally. However,  she still made things or her beloved granddaughters. There were six in all. Four of us and two cousins. All girls! She would take our measurements in the Summer and a big box would arrive just before Christmas full of special things had made for us. It was so exciting!
Then there were special outfits, a communion dress or  a confirmation suit and clothes for the entourage of grown-ups attending these religious events.
The times alone with my gran were special, even if that meant "under her feet" while she worked away on an old Singer sewing machine, bought in the 1920s. It whizzed and whirred while I silently collected scraps of fabric and wrapped them around dolls. But most of all I liked watching old movies with her, listening to her running commentary on how the Ginger´s dress was "cut on the bias" or  or Janette´s sleeve had "a mitered edge" I knew what 'Dotted Swiss' was before I knew how to write the word and I knew all the names of the pre-technicolor movie stars.

one of my illustrations

There were always fabrics around our house or at my Gran's. I had a big stash. Even at young age I would collect scraps of fabric from my grandmother's pile and we made clothes for my dolls.As my neighbour and childhood friend Louise used to say. "Thanks to you we had the best dressed dolls in the neigbourhood"
I was that kind of arty-day-dreamer creative kid  but thanks to her 'marketing' skills, she rounded up other little girls in our neighbourhood and we had doll fashion shows. All you had to do was turn up with a doll and some fabrics. In most cases they just brought the doll and I provided the fabric.  The fashion shows were fun but I suppose I was a rather precocious 9 year. I assumed everybody could do what everybody in my household did. I must have totally bewildered the other kids, demanding "but you've got to cut it on the bias". 

another of my illustrations

I suppose it was at that time that the penny dropped. It was only then I understood that what I thought was "easy-peasy" was downright difficult, if not impossible for the other little girls.  That must have been the first inkling that this was a talent. I would make clothes for everyone's doll. Then later on in my life the dolls became real people.
 At 18, I went on to study fashion design at the
National College of Art & Design in Dublin but I think I spent a lot of that time in the college library.

I remember discovering

Janet's pattern a 1938 orignal.

Janet Arnolds Patterns of Fashion  and brought the book to pattern cutting class and then  proceeded to drive the  teacher crazy. This was at a time when 'retro' and 'vintage' were not the trendy words they are today.
Janet's books were for weird 'costume' people who hung out at museums not at Next or Top Shop. They told me "You can't make clothes like that. They're not commercial"

But I made them anyway and  at my degree show the models came out to the music of Bessy Smith and Billy Holiday while everyone else's strutted to 80s pop one-hit-wonders.

Billy Holiday

You could say that there weren't many models in Ireland at the time who looked like Billy Holiday . In the 80s people had big, really big hair. They wore lots of mousse not gardenias in their hair.
But I did find a girl who looked like  Billy and we did a photo shoot and I even found some white gardenias too. 
After the degree show I had quite a few orders for my 'un-commercial' clothes and the editor of Image magazine asked to borrow some of the clothes for a fashion shoot on some exotic location. The people who did the ra-ra skirts and legwarmers (a really big look in the 80s) didn't get asked but they got really good grades.
It never occurred to anyone that I should have studied costume design. It never even it ocurred to me. Well it did but it would have meant moving to London and studying there. There were no costume design courses in Ireland at the time and I didn't have the funds to go abroad nor would I have received  any active encouragement."Sure there's no money in that" would have been the reaction. Fashion seemed a better bet.

Bessie Smith

I graduated at 21 and had a brief career  in Ireland. The jobs were few and far between. The fashion trade in Dublin was rather limited and there were few manufacturers then, so I took what I could get.

One of those jobs was working for a posh antique clothing store in the city centre called the 'Molly Blooms' located in an 18th century building converted into a shopping mall called the Powerscourt Centre 
I  repaired and restored real Victorian, Edwardian pieces, real beaded 20s dresses. I was in my element! I learnt from the owner how to date the clothing that arrived and developed quite a good eye.  I made 'reproductions' in standard sizes in antique lace. Anything from Edwardian blouses to wedding dresses. She sold everything I made. 
Guess what? I never took a single bloody picture!! I didn't value what I was doing. What was I thinking?
"Sure there's no money in that" was a negative mantra I found  hard to shake off.

Then I went to London and did a myriad of freelance jobs always with the terrifying thought at the back of my mind "they'll find out I'm not a 'real ' designer". Then I finally moved to Milan, Italy and continued my  commerical-square-peg-wrong-hole fashion design career. I don't regret it. I learnt Italian. I worked with manufacturers who at the time still made beautiful clothes. I could say most of my young adult life has been spent in Italy and it has enriched me as a human being. In the meantime I got married and moved to Verona and left  the mad empty world of fashion far behind me.

I lived in a village outside Verona and slowly died creatively. Luckily I had an opportunity to work in the summer at the Arena di Verona (The Verona Opera House) and then the bug for costume hit me really hard. It was a such a wonderful place to work in. In the wardrobe department I saw the most amazing  "un-commercial" clothes being made and we were all part of the team that made the magic. It wasn't easy working backstage at 35°C and no aircon (I passed out once) but I loved it!

Cut to 2008 I went to study costume design in London. Actually I went to do a 10 week theatrical millinery  course and stayed. I took every course and workshop to do with costume from millinery to corset making to dance costume. I took up painting portraits. I worked in West End theatres, I worked in little theatres, I hung out with people who had the same passion and creativity if not more. I was taught by those I consider the best in the business. I just drank it all in.
So I dedicate this blog to the fruit of those labours.
I've never felt more alive in my life as during that period. It was the most creative period in my life.

For this I am soooooooooooo grateful !!!