Hat Love

I put my red fedora on sale in my Etsy shop. A huge 25% off! The sale is for Valentine's Day, so it lasts through the end of the day only.

Red fedora on sale

Also, as a follow up to my earlier post, be sure to check out:
My hat-centric Etsy treasury, featuring other milliners. (Some hats have disappeared since I created the treasury.)

Hats I Like, my Pinterest board specifically dedicated to the work of other milliners.

Camaraderie, not competition

My former job centered on competition. The details of it aren't pertinent. Competitiveness, especially when it can lead to catty, back-stabbing behavior, is poisonous. And it is certainly no ally to creativity. I'm not opposed to all competition in general. But I'd much rather have a team spirit and be able to feel happiness in others' success, too.

In my blog description, I say that I blog about other milliners I admire. I haven't done much of that, but it's just because I've procrastinated writing the blogs — not because I don't have a long list of hat-makers I love and not because I don't want to feature them.

I look at it in two ways:

(1) What if I introduce someone to other hats and they like those hats better? What if they buy one of those other hats and not mine? Well, what of it? I can't stop someone else from liking another milliner's hats. And I wouldn't want to! There are more hats out there than I could possibly make. One milliner I like has a very distinct style. At some point, I might make a hat somewhat like hers. But I won't try to make her hats. And her style isn't mine. There's more than enough hat love to go around. If you want her style of hat, you'll go to her. If you want my style of hat, you won't.

(2) More people wearing hats can only be better for all hat makers. Before I was a hat maker, I was a hat-wearer. And I bought mass-produced hats. Mass-produced hats (probably) don't steal market share from couture milliners. If you buy a hat for $50 from a major or semi-major brand, it's not likely that you did that instead of buying a $200 bespoke hat. But if you love your $50 hat and wear a hat every day, then eventually you might want a higher-end hat. And the more people who wear hats, the more they are "in," and the more people who will start to wear hats. (People complaining about why hats can't come back so they can wear them ... that's a full-on rant for another day.)

A few days ago, my Facebook page (Silverhill Creative Millinery) was nearing 100 likes. At the same time, on Twitter, I found out that Greer McDonald Millinery was the same number of "likes" away. So we cheered each other on. And we liked each other's pages.

Today, I posted this tweet:

As we approached 100 FB likes (which I just reached), @greermchats and I cheered each other on. My fave hat of hers: etsy.com/listing/113117…

— Silverhill Creative (@SilverhillHats) February 14, 2013

It feels good for the creative soul.
Isn't that a charming and lovely hat? ... And it's very different from my own work. :)
I linked to her Facebook page above, so you can like her too.

A Gift to Myself

My mom asked me what I wanted as a holiday present, and I couldn't think of anything better to ask for than a gift certificate for millinery supplies. But, to make sure I made my holiday gift mine and not just business-related, I used it to make a hat for myself. I completely splurged on a cashmere hood and used the full yard I had bought of some vintage trim.

Here is the result:

Brown cashmere cloche, vintage Art Deco trim

I am in love with it! The supplies were too pricey for me to make a similar hat for sale without a buyer lined up, but I am happy to make a similar style to this on custom order.

I also just submitted photos of this hat for a contest that Judith M Millinery Supply is running on Facebook.

More views: 

 

My First Discounts

National Hat Day is tomorrow (January 15). That — plus the fact that I want to clear some space for more hats — is why I've decided to offer my first SALE!

I believe in sale prices actually being a sale, none of this save-one-dollar nonsense. So I steeply discounted four styles. Plus, I discounted shipping!

Here are the hats that are on sale:

$50 off

$5 off

$12 off

$7 off

Another Gifted Hat

I had two people I wanted to give custom hats to for the holidays. (Well, three, if you include my husband. But I don't have men's hat blocks. Alas! So I only made/gave two.) And I was finally able to give the second one. Here it is ...

blue wool cloche

I wanted to use a simple silhouette, a very 1920s' shaped hat block. But the style is very fresh and modern.

The body is 100% wool in royal blue. Inner headsize ribbon and brim edge are dark green grosgrain (rayon/cotton). The band is 100% Shetland wool (gray with threads of red, cobalt blue, burgundy and teal), which I artfully frayed around the edge. Leather button (upcycled from my stash of buttons in my sewing box).

 

"Fashions fade; style is eternal."

When I think of waste and unnecessary garbage, I think of plastic water bottles. It makes sense. The pollution created by plastic bottles is drilled into the heads of eco-conscious people (and starting to enter the minds of everyone else).

But clothes? Yeah.

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion is a tremendously important book.

I'm happy to say that I was eschewing "cheap fashion" even before this book came out. It wasn't with any world-view, though. It was for two basic reasons: One, I don't really care much for trends and adhering to the latest fashions. Two, I've always preferred longer-lasting, higher-quality clothes.

A few years ago, working with people who were very un-like me, I was talking about how I needed new jeans. "Get them at Wal-Mart or Kmart," one girl suggested. "They're only $10! They fall apart after a month, but then you can just buy another pair for cheap." Huh? "Wait," I said. "Why would I want to buy a pair of jeans that falls apart?"

"Because they're only ten dollars!"

That seems to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. And what a waste of $10. If I spend $50-$70 on a pair of jeans, I expect them to last a couple years at least.

Contrast this to a comment a friend made about a vintage 1920s dress that her mother had: "It's made like a tank," she said. "The seams are strong, and this thing is not coming apart." Now that's a fashion I'd like to have! (Of course, my love for '20s & '30s fashions might have a little something to do with it, too.)

Another time, I was in a shoe store and asked the woman about how long a pair of shoes would last (from a brand I didn't know). "Oh, you'll get a season out of them!"When did this become okay? Why is it okay to wear through a piece of clothing or a pair of shoes in less than a year? (It's especially inexcusable now that we all own more than 10 outfits total.)

Check out the "Fast Facts" from Elizabeth Cline's book. Among them are the fact that the average American buys 68 garments and 7 pairs of shoes a year! And don't feel good about giving your old clothes to charity. Only 20% manages to be resold. (The rest is trash.)

A while back, the soles on the heels of expensive boots I owned had worn all the way down (because I wore them every day). I took them in to a cobbler to be re-soled, and — voila! — they were like brand new. Other than the sole, the boots were in excellent shape. If they had been $30 boots, (1) the rest of the boots would be falling apart as well and (2) the cobbler would have told me I could buy a new pair for less than the cost of re-soling the old pair. I can't tell you how good it feels to invest in really quality boots and have them be worth it!

Many hat-makers offer cleaning/re-blocking services and maintenance for their hats. My hats haven't been in the world long enough for that to be an issue. Rest, assured, though, that I will take care of my customers and my hats. My hats are carefully made by hand here in the U.S. — and not mass produced in China. That makes me feel pretty proud. :)

"Fashions fade; style is eternal." — Yves Saint Laurent

Gift Hat

My friends are hat-wearers and hat-lovers, too. I don't think I could be friends with anyone who didn't like hats. ;)

So of course I knew a hat would be my gift to my BFF Becca. (And when I finally get men's hat blocks, her husband and mine can get hats, too.) Anyway, after a lot of holiday-crazy-schedule-delays, I finally gave her the hat on Monday night. So now I can share the photos ...

Purple wool cloche - angle 1 (left side)

And my thought process ...

She loves purple, so I knew it had to be purple. This is a royal (almost blue) purple wool felt. And she loves cloches. In particular, though, when she tried on the olive green free-form cloche I had made for myself, she decided that it looked cool with either edge in front, and she really loved that aspect.  So that's why I decided to go with a free-form style for her. 

I blocked it on a "balsa utility block" — basically a head shaped wood block. I added in the folds and curves by hand and cut the edge to suit the shape. I stitched the folds in place so they won't fall out or lose their shape. Inside is unlined and with a grosgrain head-size ribbon. Then I put a decoration on the side cut out of blue wool felt.

It definitely looks better on her than on my "model," but for now, here you can see the hat from different angles ...

angle 1 (front)

angle 2 (front)

angle 1 (right side)

angle 2 (right side)