By Julie Sparkuhl (Saddleback College Fashion Student)
Hats have been making a strong comeback over the last few years, especially for girls and young women. Hats are becoming a new fashion trend; pick up any magazine, from Vogue to Nylon and you’ll see an actress, model, or someone that the journalist is interviewing, wearing some sleek or interesting hat. Even in the wedding of the century, that of Prince William and Princess Katherine, some of the royal family were showing off their tastes in hats, or in this case fascinators.
I myself was never a hat person. The closest thing I saw of interesting or bold hats was in period pieces movies or on the run away. These hats didn’t speak to me, or when I saw them on the run away, appeared unattainable. Even ads, whether in magazines or TV appeared to be out of my range or geared towards men, with cool looks and patterns. But when it came to girls and young women, the hats for us seemed bland, or non-existent; giving little variety in hats for women. That is until now.
Last year I bought a cute fedora hat from Kohl’s. It’s a simple fedora hat, black material, but what spoke to me was the flower on the side. I instantly knew I wanted it. That was my first hat, but not the only hat that I would own. This past summer I was fortunate enough to travel to New York with other fashion students from the Fashion students from the Fashion Department and see New York and its bountiful fashion houses. One place especially that I loved and which held my next hat was Custom Fabric Flowers by M.S.Schmalberg Inc. This place was wonderful, showing us how they make flowers, what actresses wore their flowers on gowns and movies, to showing us where their flowers appeared in magazines and other ads. But while seeing the work room, I fell in love with their hats, including this fedora hat, brown simple yet pretty hat accented nicely with flowers. I knew right then and there I had to have this hat. I asked if the hat was for sale, and luckily enough for me it was. Without thinking about it, I whipped out my credit card and purchased the hat. I wasn’t considering about the price, I just knew I had to have the hat. That was the most expensive thing (beside food) that I bought, but I didn’t care, the hat was mine and it was coming back with me to California to join my other two hats.
Now I’m happy to announce this semester my sister and I are taking a fashion class making hats. It’s the Millinery Hat class, taught by Joan Goodspeed. Our first project is making fascinators, and let me tell you, it boggles the mind of what we can use and put on the fascinators. Since beginning this project, I’ve been searching the Internet trying to find website or blogs of people who make hats and fascinators. One place which offers hat designers is etsy, but also too if one searches Goggle and put blog and hats, one will be introduced to people who make millinery their lively hood. Now I don’t know if my fascinator will be great or even pretty; but I am having fun making something that I can wear, when I’m dressing up or dressing down, a hat or fascinator will be accompanying me.
Photos below taken by Julie Sparkuhl:
Julie attaching materials on the fascinators:
Decorating a hat with crochet flowers:
Material on another hat:
