1940s style – Millinery workshop
July 1, 2011 About my museum job, Adult events at our Museums, Late:Create, Learning
This month’s Continue Creating workshop saw old and new faces alike making 1940s inspired hats. Adult Programmes Manager and freelance milliner, Isabel Benavides showed participants how to take hats bought at charity shops for a couple of pounds and turn them into new creations using ‘make do and mend techniques’. Make do and mend or what has been trendily re-branded as up-cycling, involves taking an old or tired item of clothing, in this instance a hat, and refreshing it into something better. It was popular during rationing when money was tight and often women re-fashioned their husband’s hats, jackets, ties and shirts when they were away fighting for long periods.
There is some wonderfully kitsch government issued ‘make do and mend’ films from the 1940s on youtube. We watched one that contains the immortal line “You can turn hubby’s hat into a hat for his sweet little wife”.
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=51689
We also got a sneak peek at some hats from the store. These included the stunning evening pieces below designed by Italian legend Elsa Schiaparelli.
They then received an introduction to how to sculpt felt, create corsages, manipulate hat wire and use Petersham (specialist hat ribbon). Everyone really got into it and a range of styles started to emerge. From the naval inspired…
…through the post-modern…
… to the super exotic…
By the end a great array of male and female hats had been produced and even a child’s head band as a birthday present for one of the participants’ 7 year old niece.
It was good to be reminded of ways to upcycle your wardrobe, using methods from another time of great austerity…
