Melbourne Spring Fashion is a fashion lovers dream week in Melbourne filled with the showcases of the upcoming and coming season for Fashion and Millinery alike.  This year there is a host of Millinery based events is on throughout the festival.

Styling session with Louise Macdonald
Description: With more than 20 years of millinery, Louise will share her list of “dos and don’ts” when it comes to choosing a hat and styling your look. Hear from the team at Louise Macdonald Millinery the latest trends for the season both on and off the track.
Date: Thursday 1 September, 1 – 1.30pm
Location: Suite 803, Nicholas Building, 37 Swanson Street, Melbourne 3000
Cost: Free event with registration required make your booking here

Hats and High Tea on Collins
Descriptor: The Collins Street Precinct in conjunction with The Millinery Association and Charity Partner, Lady Mayoress’s Charity Committee is pleased to host Hats & High Tea on Collins.
Date: Friday 2 September 2 – 4pm
Location: Sofitel Melbourne on Collins, Melbourne,
Cost: $75.00 make your booking by calling 03 9653 7717 or email sarah.kettlewell@sofitel.com and quote “Hats & High Tea”

Louise Macdonald: Millinery Workshop
Descriptor: Get your creative juices flowing as you learn how to manipulate specialist millinery materials. Leave the session with your beautiful creation in its own glossy hat box, ready for extensive outings throughout the season
Date: Tuesday 30 August, 6 – 8.30pm
Thursday 1 September, 6 – 8.30pm
Location: Suite 803, Nicholas Building, 37 Swanson Street, Melbourne 3000
Cost: $95.00 make your booking here 

Creative Collective Exhibition
Description: In partnership with the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, the Creative Collective Exhibition showcases Melbourne’s innovative, diverse and inspiring independent designers, artists and retailers.  Featuring clothing, shoes, bags, millinery, jewellery and accessories by esteemed industry leaders, the curated installation celebrates daring designs and inventive techniques.
Date: Friday 26 August, 5 – 10pm
Saturday 27 August, 10am – 5pm
Sunday 28 August, 10am – 5pm
Monday 29 August, 10am – 7pm
Tuesday 30 August, 10am – 2pm
Wednesday 31 August, 10am – 7pm
Thursday 1 September, 10am – 7pm
Friday 2 September, 10am – 7pm
Location: Melbourne Town Hall
Cost: Free

Make a simple headpiece at the Kangan Batman Institute
Descriptor: Learn a milliners best kept secrets as we teach you how to create a headpiece from start to finish to create a simple headpiece that you can show off at the races.
Date: Wednesday 31 August, 5.30 – 8.30pm
Thursday 1 September, 5.30 – 8.30pm
Location: Kangan Institute, Docklands
Cost: $157.74 per person make your booking here

Erika & Jago
Descriptor: Melbourne milliner Peter Jago has partnered with t Erika ‘the Queen of Brooches’ to talk to the designers and curate your own wardrobe or Spring Racing Carnival ensemble.
Date: Friday 26 August, 4 – 6pm
Tuesday 30 August, 2 – 5pm
Wednesday 31 August, 2 – 5pm
Thursday 1 September, 4 – 6pm
Friday 2 September, 4 – 6pm
Location: Erika, Melbourne
Cost: Free

High Fashion, High Tea 
Descriptor: See unique millinery designs on display and in a ‘live showcase’ from Kangan Institute’s graduates and current students
Date: Saturday 27 August, 2 – 4.30pm
Location: The Westin
Cost: $59.00 make your booking here

Hat or headpiece? Making the right decision
Descriptor: This session will look at the difference between a hat and a headpiece, together with your bodyshape and how to get the right scale and proportion for you and your headpiece. It will also examine how to style your look with your accessories (make-up, sunglasses, jewellery) and how to own that look!
Date: Wednesday 31 August, noon – 12.45pm
Wednesday 31 August, 1 – 1.45pm
Thursday 1 September, noon – 12.45pm
Thursday 1 September, 1 – 1.45pm
Location: Kangan Institute, Docklands, Victoria, Australia
Cost: $35.00 make your booking here

Hair to enhance your head-wear
Descriptor: This look and learn workshop will show you different ways to style your hair to enhance your chosen head-wear.
Date: Wednesday 31 August, noon – 12.45pm
Wednesday 31 August, 1 – 1.45pm
Thursday 1 September, noon – 12.45pm
Thursday 1 September, 1 – 1.45pm
Location: Kangan Institute, Docklands, Victoria, Australia
Cost: $32.34 make your booking here

We are also likely to see hats on head at the main runway events of David Jones and Myer.  Myer are known for stocking both hand made Australian Millinery as well as a range of mass produced pieces while David Jones we are more likely to see the mass produced pieces.  Keep your eye out for other partnerships that may be occurring on the smaller scale runways and with independent designers.

How did you become interested in millinery?

My Dad worked at the TAFE in Wangaratta and saw a short weekend course in Albury to make a hat, our family has always been interested in dress making and it just seemed like a fun weekend making and learning with my younger sister.  We attended the headpiece making course and returned the following month to the hat making course with Elizabeth Hemsley.  

Where did you train in Millinery?  What was the best aspect of your training?

I attended formal training at Kangan Batman TAFE with a Certificate II, III and IV in Millinery which took three years of one evening a week to complete.  I had some wonderful tutors in Serena Lindeman and Paris Kyne. TAFE training was very important in building my skills and I had the opportunity to apply these skills working while working for Louise Macdonald which was invaluable.  It has allowed me to refine my technique without the concern for developing a design and having my workmanship be the second thought or my design suffer because of my inability to complete a technique.  I was fortunate enough to undertake workplace with Louise Macdonald in my first year of study and was invited back and was part of her team for 7 race carnival seasons.

Who do you make hats for? Churchgoers? Brides? Everyday wear?

I make hats for every occasion including every day for Winter and Summer.  I really enjoy creating a special occasion piece either for a race day or wedding but also love to help a client find or create their favourite hat.  

Where do you get inspiration for your designs?

When I design I am thinking about where the piece could be worn – is it indoor or outdoor?  Winter, Summer or trans-seasonal?  I want to create a range of pieces that provide options to my customer when they are looking for their next style.  

Do you wear many hats yourself?

I do – I have a summer hat that I wear everyday outside to lunch and a selection of wool headpieces and hats by the door during winter to pick something as I step out of the house. It doesn’t have to be large but something as long as there is something on my head.   

Who would you most like to see wearing one of your pieces?

I would really like to see the continuation of headpieces growing within evening social events – Melbourne’s headpiece and hat wearing is very focused on Melbourne Carnival and I would love to see this continuing to expand. It doesn’t have to large pieces, smaller pieces can be just as stunning.  There are so many innovative milliners in Australia looking for opportunities and the experience of having a piece made or putting together a head to toe outfit is someone many women enjoy.  I think it falls back to a confidence aspect of wearing something different which is such a privileged. When my Nan saw my sister and I wear a hat or headpiece she commented about how wonderful it is to see us dressed but she then once followed this with how she was one of the first people to stop wearing hats to church.  I think this a really interest social aspect of hat wearing and I have heard many examples of similar stories.  The generation who stop wearing hats is the one that is nostalgic for the next generation to continue – it is a very interesting contradiction.  

Describe your workroom atmosphere – do you play music, share a table, can you see the floor?

My workroom is currently being relocated and I am looking forward to placing my materials and equipment in their new home to be able to share the beautiful materials with my clients.

Do you have any other interests, hobbies?

I enjoy dancing in particular swing dancing. 

How did you become interested in millinery?

I’ve always had a love of accessories. When I was very little I would often be seen with a handbag and my favourite yellow umbrella, so hats seemed a natural progression as I got older.

Please describe the first hat you made.

My first hat was a black peachbloom felt with a small downturned brim and quite a high straight crown. It was trimmed with a black organdie drape and oversize paper roses in pink and red. Think Undertaker, but prettier! I remember my millinery teacher being quite horrified at the thought of it, but admitted, once it was made, that somehow it worked. I wore it to death and then pulled the roses off to re-use.

Where and how did you learn millinery?

I had planned to do a millinery course in Melbourne when I was about 19, but never managed to get the money together, so finally, when I was about 28 and working in London (backstage as a theatre mechanist), I enrolled in night classes at the London College of Fashion.

I had started to go a bit mad, working in such a creative industry and not doing anything more creative than putting sets up and moving scenery about in the dark, so the night classes were really just to see where I might want to go when I decided I’d had enough of working backstage.

From my first class I was hooked. I took classes over the next 18 months, all the while working backstage.

How did you become interested in millinery?

During late high school, I was a bit preoccupied with Victorian fashion. When millinery was mentioned at a careers evening, millinery sounded like the perfect job. I was told “Nobody wears hats! Choose a modern career!” That fired the spark even more!

Where did you learn millinery?

The Hat Factory in Auckland. When I learnt there, I was taught by old school milliners – wonderful ladies!

How long have you been a milliner for? Where else did you work?

Ten years, a couple of years while studying at university for a BA (Soc Sci). I also trained first as a florist, which I have found fabulous for developing a knack for line and composition.

Where do you get inspiration for your designs?

Sometimes I like to work by taking hats from other decades and modernising/putting my own spin on them. I get ideas all the time from colours, shapes, images that make an impression. The main thing is to make a hat that looks good with a particular outfit and the person’s face shape, cheekbones, jawline and shoulder width. Headgear is very subjective.

What has been your most enjoyable commission?

For an international dance group, I made up petal comb headpieces to go with their funky 60s style outfits. The colours of the outfits and the headpieces were really out-there and inspired. It’s always a kick to work on something completely different.

He was born in Liverpool, England in 1957 and graduated in 1979 from St. Martin’s School of Art in London.

His asymmetric and outrageous hats quickly became popular with designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler and Zandra Rhodes. He also designed for singers such as Madonna, Boy George and George Michael. The Princess of Wales branched out from the traditional royal milliners, choosing Stephen to make some of her hats.

He is credited with helping to revive millinery during the latter part of the 20th century, and is still going strong. In 1990 he launched a number of new accessory and diffusion lines.

How did you become interested in millinery?

By chance, I was a tailor’s apprentice and the millinery workroom was next door.

Where did you learn millinery?

At Lachasse Couture house in London, England, by a milliner called Shirley Hex, who subsequently taught many milliners including Phillip Treacy.

I was Period Costume Designer for National Historic Sites Branch of Parks Canada (a Canadian Government agency that runs many historic sites across Canada). My job required me to research historic clothing cut and construction and create historically accurate reproduction costumes that were then worn or exhibited in these sites. Naturally, hats are part of a complete costume. Before I worked at Parks Canada, I had no special interest in headwear. I crocheted my winter hats to match my coats. However when I began creating reproduction costumes, I was fascinated by hats – their design, materials and construction. I found the sculptural quality of a hat intriguing.

Where and did you learn millinery?

I studied on the job under Senior Period Costume Designer, Theresa Ingram, at Parks Canada and at Richard Robinson’s L’académie des Couturiers Canadiens, Ottawa, in the 1970s and early 80s. I continued studying historic millinery by research and observation of examples in collections throughout Canada and the United States.

How did you become interested in millinery?

I was a fashion/tailor student in the fashion school of the Hague. A friend of mine who was studying costume knew a milliner and asked her to teach us millinery for fun. I enjoyed it and continue to take lessons with this lady. I was impressed and enthusiastic about millinery. I continued from there.

Where and why did you learn millinery?

When I finished the fashion/tailor school, I took lessons with Rose Cory (London) and started my own business. Every summer I took lessons at the London College of Fashion in summer school and master classes taught by Susie Hopkins (London).

How long have you been a milliner for?

I have had my own business for more then 10 years. In the beginning the company name was “Head and Housetrends”; at that stage I designed/made a lot of things. I made baskets for old-timers, soft furnishing articles, slipcovers for furniture. I worked together with a firm that produced suede/leather clothes and I designed hats for them. A few years ago I decided to specialise in hats alone even though Holland is not known for hat-wearing! I changed the company name to Berry Rutjes Jr. (my own name), chose a new logo, brief paper/envelopes, creating a whole new house style. I also rebuilt the shop, like a French hat shop/atelier (a little bit of Paris in Gouda).

How did you become interested in millinery?

I’ve been wearing hats as long as I can remember. As a kid, I was always running around with something fun and crazy on my head. As I got older I started collecting vintage hats and clothing, it was a natural progression I guess.

Where and did you learn millinery?

In the summer of 1998 I got a loft in New England’s largest artists community in Boston. There aren’t a lot of schools offering millinery courses in the States, so I decided to teach myself the art of millinery. I got my hands on a couple of old millinery books and de-constructed some vintage hats to see how they were made. I resolved myself to learning the classic techniques first with the hopes that the rest would come later. It was then I found my true passion… hats!

How long have you been a milliner for?

I was confident I could call myself a milliner when I won 1st Runner as The Hat Magazines, International Hat Designer of the Year in August 2001. I worked in retail management and designed women’s accessories until 1998.

Where do you get inspiration for your designs?

Inspiration for me comes from all directions. Oddly enough, I get great inspiration from the mistakes I’ve made. Sometimes the best creations are stumbled upon by accident. My Hat Studio, which I designed and decorated, abounds with colour, light, pictures, music, books and rolls of fabric. Music and movies are a big inspiration as well.

My greatest inspiration, however, was my grandmother Mamie, who passed away in 1998. She was an amazing self-taught designer and seamstress. With her passing I felt an epiphany to explore my creative desires, which further allowed me to pursue my dreams.