Mad About Hats

I love hats.

I love wearing hats. I love looking at hats. I love making hats. When I found out that the Victoria & Albert Museum has a special hat exhibit going on right now, I took it as a sign that my trip to London was meant to be. I took a millinery course in college, and it remains one of my favorite classes these many years later.

I don't own a large number of hats, primarily because they tend to take up a fair amount of space. Most of the hats I wear on a regular basis are small, soft, and easily rolled up. But I do go all out for costume hats. My pride and joy is the silk-covered top hat I made for my Millennium Earl costume (from the D.Gray-man manga & anime).


I hand wove the checkered hat band from 1" (2.5cm) wide black and ivory silk ribbon, shaping it to fit the tapered shape of the crown. The hat lining matches the lining of the costume's waistcoat. I don't always go to such lengths in finishing costume pieces, but I get a particular joy out of fussing with all the little hand stitched seams and trims of a hat.

When making a hat, you're dealing with small lengths of fabric, small quantities of trim, so it's possible to work with higher quality materials than you might otherwise be able to afford. The Earl's very tall top hat required less than a yard of silk twill, so, even though I used about 12 yards of silk ribbon, the materials cost probably totaled about $50. Pretty good bang for the buck considering how much an accurate and well-made hat can add to a costume.

So don't shy away from millinery work. It's a bit fussy, but it's not particularly difficult. Most structured hats - as opposed to soft, unstructured ones such as berets - must be put together by hand. The Earl's top hat has exactly one machine-stitched seam (up the center back of the crown). But handwork is great for movie watching time! In future posts I'll talk about various categories of headgear, cover some basic techniques, and provide additional references and sourcing information.