Jean Paul Gaultier in San Francisco

While teaching in the San Francisco Bay area in late July, I was lucky enough to score tickets to the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the deYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park.  I was fortunate enough to see the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit there in 2008, which was incredible, and I knew this exhibit would not disappoint.

If you aren't familiar with his work, you will at least be familiar with his work with the artist pictured below...in JPG.  Madonna during her Blonde Ambition tour in the '90's.

Lots of pictures in this post.  Lots.  So grab a cup of tea or a glass of wine and hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen.  Enjoy!

I was in this exhibit for 2.5 hours and I have friends who were there for over 4!  Lots to see and I've only posted about 25! (Oh, pictures WERE allowed in the exhibit, so I didn't violate any museum policy by taking these.  FYI.)

Below, while not part of the Gaultier exhibit, this fabulous sculpture hung at the elevator entrance to the exhibit.  Pretty cool, and soooo hat like. (That's the shadow in the background.)

White board greetings from the man himself, who was on-hand for the opening.

 WARNING!  Actually, I didn't see anything too exotic.  :-)

 The jacket/hood piece below was the very first thing you saw as you walked into the hall.  I absolutely love this and think it may be my favorite piece in the whole show.  But that might be naive of me.  I loved many of the pieces, especially the hats and headpieces, of which you will see quite a few in this post.

OK, I can't even describe the mannequins...who had moving facial features, almost holograms but not really.  I had been told about them before I got to the exhibit, but nothing quite prepared me for the awesomeness of these ladies and gentlemen.  Oh, and they sang...and chanted... and spoke...and cried...and laughed.  Incredible!

Love this ethereal photo.  All gauzy and angelic.

Gauzy and angelic.  Only two adjectives to describe this beautiful piece.  Smashing!

Another of the talking mannequins.  Love her hat!  So 1940's!

Close-up of the hat.  Felt.

Another 1940's inspired hat, also felt.

Beading!  Lots of beading!

You are going to see that I was mesmerized by the following headpiece.  You'll see it from many angles.  All wire and tulle and lace.

And the beautiful shadow it cast below.

Couple of Eiffel Tower shots. 

Street fashion.  Note that the dress is a black plastic garbage bag, the bracelet is a tin food can, the necklace is comprised of tops from tin food cans, steel wool scrubbies, and a tea steeper ball.

Madonna and Jean Paul with the 'infamous' Blonde Ambition corset.  Corsets are a favorite of Jean Paul's and a whole section of the exhibit was dedicated to corsets.

Below...iconic Jean Paul Gaultier!

I loved the whole Friday night at the deYoung!  There was a jazz band playing when I got there, then about 50 tango couples showed up to dance in the lobby (they are so serious!), and of course the exhibit.  So much electricity throughout the building.  If you are ever in the Bay area on a Friday night, I highly recommend...they are open late each Friday night for all kinds of events.

Next post will be about my second class at Lacis (first class is the last post here on the blog) and then later a post about my class at Wayne Wichern's millinery studio.

Vintage Millinery Mannequin Heads

I was on my way to an annual American music festival, one of the largest in the US--Merlefest, when I received an email from a woman who makes mannequin heads.  This woman, Marge Crunkleton, lives here in the state I live in--North Carolina.  I had never heard of her but boy am I glad she contacted me!

I traveled to Denver, North Carolina, on my way to Hickory, North Carolina, to meet my best friend so that we could attend Merlefest, the music festival.  Denver was about a 4.5 hour drive from the Atlantic Coast (where I live), up toward the mountains of North Carolina.  Marge lives on beautiful Lake Norman, a huge lake near Charlotte.  I did not know what I was about to see!

Marge, a very young 80 years old, makes vintage mannequin heads, about 20 different styles, all from the 1920's through the 1950's.  They are fabulous!  They are actual reproductions, directly molded from true vintage mannequin heads her son finds throughout his travels in the US.  Marge makes them all differently by changing eye color, skin tone, hair color, lips, and even how she paints the eyeliner and eyelashes.  You cannot believe how changing even one of these elements changes how the 'lady' looks.

When I first came into the room where these unfinished manny heads were...I felt like I was seeing the Chinese Terra Cotta Warriors!  There are over 20 different styles of mannequin heads, and you can choose the color of the hair, make up, etc.  Marge had several dressed out in vintage hats.

I just knew this was a vintage hat, but upon further inspection it appears to be a fabulous reproduction of a 1940's hat.  She had mink and evening bag to further accessorize 'Susan' or 'Pilar' as Marge's son calls her.  She was my favorite!

Here she is 'unadorned' so to speak.  I love her high cheekbones!

Marge had quite a few vintage hats...some quite remarkable.  She just uses them as props, but they really make the 'girls' come alive.  I was impressed.

Another example of the style of mannequin heads is above.  This one is really a jewelry display head, because of her neck and the way a necklace can be shown to advantage.  She will be my next purchase since I sell vintage costume jewelry in my shop--aMuse.

In fact, Marge has a few heads that are historically used for jewelry, not hats.  The headsize on these would be too small for almost any adult women's hat.  And speaking of that, even the manny heads that ARE for hats, usually are going to be 21.5", when the average American woman's head is 22"-22.5"  Something to think about when making and displaying hats.

I looked at a number of heads, all with different hair color and eyes.  I'm big on eyes!  The 'girls' on the right--Susan and Liz are the two I took home with me, but it was a tough choice!

BTW, when I got home with the manny heads, my dogs went NUTZ!  The 'girls' look just a bit too real sitting on the dining room table. 

Marge tells me she is very interested in milliners knowing about her vintage 'girls' and hopes to sell them to those who appreciate them.  However, at 80 years old...she wants to be busy...but not too busy.  I think you will love her and her mannequin heads.  Find her at http://www.crunkleton.com.  Please tell her I sent you.

After I left Marge's house I went on to Hickory to meet my friend.  Next day we made our way for an hour to Merlefest to hear some of the most amazing Americana music you will hear anywhere.  The festival is in honor of legendary bluegrass musician Merle Watson, who died young.  His father, even more legendary, Doc Watson, is 90 years old and still a force to be reckoned with musically. 

Not too big on fashion hats, and why would they be?  This is more about hearing great music!  You will see lots of sun hats, Western (cowboy) hats, and baseball caps.  But look what I found!  They were so energetic and I loved their take on hats at festival!

Hope you enjoyed this post.  Next post will be a tutorial on making a hat I created for Kentucky Derby.  Til then, happy hatmaking!  And thanks for reading!

Hat Girl Names and a Millinery Clarification

Several weeks ago I posted a blog entry about the new mannequins I acquired recently. I asked you guys to help name them and I'm pleased to announce their names today.

"(She) looks like a gal with a past. She strikes me as a former Vegas showgirl, so you better keep an eye on her and keep her in very stylish hats! She looks like a Deloris." Atlanta milliner Diane Shagott

"I think a good name for the wonderful silver head would be Luna (moon in Spanish), because it reminds me of the moon light." Spanish milliner Cristina De Prada

Thanks, ladies! They will forever be known as Deloris and Luna.

OK, now for the clarification:

In the last entry I mentioned that milliners don't use GLUE--ever. Well, I'd like to amend that. Duh. Sometimes we DO use glue. But we do NOT use glue to adhere our flowers, feathers, ribbon, labels, etc., to the hats. That would have the vast potential to ruin the embellishments as well as the hat if things don't get placed correctly the first time, something that is very easy to do. You can easily ruin the embellishments or the hat by trying to pull them apart. That is why we sew the embellishments to the hat. It allows us to get the elements (flowers, feathers, etc.) exactly where we want them without globs of glue everywhere. And we can re-use the embellishments as well as the hat if we decide to re-use them later. The very worst glue (if there is a scale) would be hot glue--yuk, strings of glue everywhere except where it might be needed!

I do use glue to make the French flowers, as you saw on a recent blog entry. And I do use glue in bridal millinery quite often. That would be most often on bridal tulle. If you are adding rhinestones or pearls to the tulle you are better off glueing them rather than trying to sew them on. Sewing makes ugly puckers in the tulle where glueing doesn't. I also use glue to secure knots in thread that doesn't hold a knot very well.

Story: Many years ago I was teaching a straw and felt blocking class and everyone was embellishing their hats at the end of the day. I had given the glue lecture earlier in the day. As everyone was busy putting flowers, feathers, ribbon and such on their hats I left the classroom for a few minutes. Upon my return I was smacked by the unmistakeable smell of hot glue. Someone had the audacity to pull out a hot glue gun in the classroom and proceed to string glue all over the place!! My reaction--I didn't say a word. The class all gave me the 'what are you going to do about it' look, but I figured this--if she was brazen enough to do just the opposite of what I had just discussed at length, then a public reprisal wasn't going to do any good whatsoever. I said not a word. Why waste my breath?

Millinery tip: Sew your embellishments and labels onto your hats. You will be able to remove them easily if needed.

Flowermaking for Millinery and Hat Girls

Last week I had the good fortune to be offered two lovely vintage hat mannequins for my shop, aMuse: artisanal finery. I have a few vintage mannequins, but none like the ones this woman brought in for me to see. Most of mine don't have features, just the shape of a woman's head is about as defined as they get. I call them my 'hat girls.'

These new (um, vintage) 'hat girls' are just begging for names! And that's where you come in. I'd love to hear what names their unique faces suggest to you. Is it an old-fashion name like Rose, or Pearl, or Clarise? Or a more modern name like Susan, or Jessica, or Stephanie? What about exotic--Lolita?

I'll post their new names here in 30 days, on July 21! You can either leave suggestions for their names in the 'Comments' here on the blog (comments are at the end of each blog entry) or email them to me at jan@hatshatshats.com.

'Hat Girl #1' is above. She is rather alien-looking but with a sweet smile you can't really see in the picture. Her coloring---silver. Yep, silver, with a long swan neck. She'll be wearing some of the more artful hats.

'Hat Girl #2,' as seen above, is from the 1950's. She has beautiful full make-up and 'real' false eyelashes. (Did I just say 'real' false??) She has some 'Hollywood' about her too. She'll be wearing glamorous hats.

WHAT ARE THEIR NAMES??

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OK, on to the next bit in this blog entry.

I have a bride I'm working with who wanted a silk flower in multiple shades of silk to go with her taffeta dress from Nicole Miller. A beautiful dress that has a very, very matte metallic thread running through it. Sometimes the thread shows up as silver, sometimes, gold, and sometimes coppery or even platinum. It is amazing fabric to say the least!

The flower will be coupled with a face veil of vintage silk veiling; the very fine spider webby type that is hard to come by.

Below is the flower, and I've shown some pictures of the process to get the stamens that same silver/gold/copper/platinum color.

The flower is a combo of about 5 different colors, textures of silk fabric.

I used glass glitter to change the color of the stamens. These are 'mica,' '24 carat,' and 'sterling.' Glass glitter is very different than kindergarten glitter. It is finer, less shiny, and very dramatic.

Above you will see that I've used a tiny paintbrush to cover the tips of the pearl stamens with a quick drying glue, then rolled the ends of the stamens into the mixture of glass glitter. I mixed all three of the colors to get what I thought would be best with the fabric colors in the flower as well as her dress.

Here's a picture of the stamens drying after they have been covered in glass glitter, and the various flower petals, all before being assembled.

Now scroll back up to see the finished flower again.

Millinery tip: use fast drying glue to keep your flowers from falling apart as you assemble.