Hat making is an endangered craft
Did you know that hat making is considered an endangered craft according to the research from the Heritage Craft Association in the United Kingdom? You can see their complete list of endangered crafts HERE. Millinery has probably been a dying art since the 1960s. With help from the UK Royal Family and social media, the general public is at least more aware of fancy modern hats. I think the Race culture, and the fashion prizes handed out to ladies who attend and enter the Race events are what’s kept this business afloat in Australia, England, and somewhat in the United States.
Similar to sewing clothes, there was a time where women knew how to adjust, fix, and redesign (up cycle) their hats. Did you know that both Coco Chanel and Halston started out as milliners before they became mega star fashion designers? (Just to name the two most famous contemporary designers. There are more.) HERE is a great blog with some images of hats by Coco Chanel. If you haven’t seen the new Netflix series on Halston, it does start out at the end of his millinery career where he designed Jackie Kennedy’s famous pillbox hat. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has a display and a short online gallery of Halston’s hats HERE.
Hat wearing is either casual like a beanie, or reserved only for weddings. At least people are still getting married, but not everyone is wearing a hat. But realistically, people don’t dress up these days and any hatting is a simple synthetic or mass produced paper one. Yes, paper. Many of the new materials available to milliners now are made from paper and synthetics made popular by Cosplay fans. I think it’s a worthy option, even if it doesn’t block the same way as straw or wool. But some of those synthetics can do amazing things. Despite the great new synthetics, I use them sparingly. I am trying to consider the environment when I can. I don’t think making a feather out of a polyester fiber is better for the environment. It might seem more humane if one is raising birds to kill them for their feathers. But we don’t do that anymore. I buy all feathers that are byproducts from the food industry. So it limits me to pretty basic birds. But that’s okay by me.
To say that a milliner with a humble business like mine is a hobbyist is really understating what I do. I hear it all the time from friends and family. I had to travel to the UK and study under a trained milliner to just touch on the basics, and then I had to keep learning with other experienced milliners because attending formal training is very limited. I am luckier than most because I had the means to seek out tutelage, and some basic design experience from when I attended fashion design school. Millinery is an endangered craft simply because training, and the sourcing of materials we need to make hats are all disappearing. The only way to really save the craft is for the general population to drive up demand by owning and wearing hats.
One of the ironies of course is that I don’t wear a hat everyday, and during the Winter months, I mainly wear a hand-knitted hat instead of a wool one. I decided that this year, I need to change all that, and start wearing some of my more casual but fun pieces out and about. I live in Central Texas, and frankly, the heat limits my hat wearing to sun hats. The weather here goes from humid, to hot and hotter. But I am looking at new ways to dress my head and keep it cool.
For the past few years, I have been trying to keep up with the race fashion schedules as well as the wedding hat needs. Imagine my disappointment when everyone I meet locally, that learns I am a milliner asks me if I make panamas or Western hats. What better way to educate people than to wear my own hats right? I organized another photoshoot this week to focus on a few warm weather pieces that’s a bit of a mash up between Ascot and garden hats. More hand sculpted work coupled with some whimsey. I can’t help myself when it comes to tall sculpted head pieces. I know it’s not popular here, but I love creating them, even if it’s just for me.