Millinery used to be the maiden aunt of the fashion world. While graduates from the fashion colleges moulded careers for themselves as designers, couturiers or bespoke tailors, nobody really wanted to make hats. Too many meringue-like creations sported at fancy weddings had put paid to the glamour of the milliner's art. Then Irish designer Philip Treacy decided to re-invent the hat and in the process, got women wearing headgear again. Race meets were full of glamorous spiralling numbers, crouched low over one eye; wedding guests sprouted feathered creations perched at cheeky angles. Hats no longer meant a black straw number wreathed in a scarf, but high glamour and Audrey Hepburn chic.
Ireland was no exception to the renaissance of hat style. "A lot of people wouldn't go to a wedding or the races without a hat now," points out young milliner Carol Smith. "People have definitely got a bit more daring than they were years ago though. They don't just want a hat any more; they want something that will get them noticed." Feathered headpieces were a useful half-way house that got a lot of women back into the hat habit. Wendy Judge, who sells a lot of delicate feathers alongside her hats, says: "Even teenagers are wearing feather pieces now because they're just so easy to wear."
Now that there's a newly appreciative audience, it's hardly surprising that a new generation of milliners has sprung up. The three Irish newcomers profiled here had to take unusual career paths to get started, but they are now working hard to meet demand for occasion wear hats with a bit of a difference. Although all three would acknowledge their debt to Philip Treacy, none of them is following the exact trail he blazed. Wendy, who learned her trade in New York, says: "Philip Treacy has done wonders but I'm fighting back against those huge hats now. I want to make something a little more classic with less going on."
Who? Claire-Ann Lawler
Career path? Claire Ann had three years of bio-chemistry under her belt but no training as a milliner. She made clothes and hats in her spare time for years with her mother as a particularly good customer - "She's a very glamorous lady and she would come to me because she could find nothing to match her outfit that wasn't the same as everyone else's. I knew there was a market there." When somebody spotted one of Claire-Ann's creations at a wedding in London and asked her to make 10 hats for a catwalk show in Temple Bar last summer, her business really took off.
Why millinery? "A hat is a real focal point of an outfit, and I could see that they were coming back into fashion."
What's the look? "I like my hats to accentuate a face like a good haircut would . . . I don't make many big-brimmed hats because they usually distract too much from the face and the eyes." Inspirations? Claire-Ann uses lots of very unusual feathers, sourced from Paris and New York. "I like to think my hats are very sculptured."
What's the process? First Claire-Ann takes two skull measurements and has a look at the outfit her customer wants to wear as well as the shape of their face. "Then I block the hat out in net and mould it in the oven. My whole place smells of glue." The hat is then stiffened, cut and hand-finished.
How long will it take? "It depends really - I could do a hat in three days if it was an urgent case but I like a bit more warning than that usually."
Price range? Commissions range from £200 to £350.
Who buys? Claire-Ann is doing a roaring trade in wedding hats and other occasion wear: "And daring women are starting to wear them as evening wear."
Ambitions? Claire-Ann has been asked to put together a collection for the Design Centre and also has plans for a range of streetwear hats for men and women. "I'm making hats out of salmon-skin which has been treated and dyed the most amazing colours. I want to see my hats on the catwalks in Paris and New York in the not too distant future. I also want people to really desire my hats, to say: `I have to have a Claire-Ann Lawler hat.' "
Claire-Ann Lawler can be contacted at 01- 2600170 or 086-8704139
Who? Carol Smith
Career path? During the summers Carol took time out from her job in the costume department at the Abbey Theatre to do design courses in the Grafton Academy of Design and a millinery course at the London College of Fashion. When she decided to leave the Abbey to work as a milliner full-time, she found that her training with the theatre didn't go to waste: "I used to do a lot of dying, pattern-making, hand-sewing and cutting there. It's like school: you do eventually use everything you learn in the end."
Why millinery? "I like the fact that they're objects - they're small and detailed and that makes them more interesting to me than clothes."
What's the look? "I'm doing a lot in finamay at the moment which is a light, woven fabric like straw. I can dye that any colour I choose." Although Carol will make up hats in any style, she prefers to make "something a bit more outrageous, something lavish".
Inspirations? Carol admits that her range of inspirations is very wide: "Anything from fashion magazines to advertisements for bottles. Museums are a great source of inspiration, as are the tops of buildings. It'd be the shape I'd notice really."
What's the process? Bring along your outfit because Carol will dye the raw materials to match it. After you've picked a style which suits you from the large selection Carol has in stock, she will block out the hat, fit it to your head, wire the brim and finish it by hand.
How long will it take? Carol ideally likes three to four weeks to put a hat together but reckons she could do it in a week.
Price range? From £60 to £110 for a feather head-piece, and from £110 to £250 for a hat.
Who buys? Carol reckons most of her customers are aged 30-55, with her creations cropping up at a lot of weddings and race meets. "If somebody's going to Ascot, they might buy a few hats . . . Some people just want a hat whereas others want to be noticed."
Ambitions? "To be known by more people than know me now! Hat's are fun to wear - I'd love to see everyone wearing hats in the future."
Carol Smith can be contacted at 01- 6703864 or 087-2481134
Who? Wendy Judge
Career path? After studying at the Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design, Wendy went to New York where she studied millinery at the New York School of Fashion and Technology, under renowned milliner Janine Galimard, who was herself a pupil of Balenciaga. For the next three-and-a-half years, Wendy worked with milliner Tracy Watts in New York doing everything from making blocks to trimming hats for the spring and autumn collections. She decided to return to Ireland in 1998 to set up by herself, and to pursue her parallel career as a painter.
Why millinery? "I love the sculptural side to millinery, the pure shapes and forms. It's like a 3-D sculpture you can hold in your hand."
What's the look? "I'm quite a classicist and my hats are very much like those of the 1930s, very perky and small."
Inspirations? Hollywood, vintage hats of the 1930s and 1940s, Brancusi sculptures and architecture. "I don't like a lot of detail. A hat should finish off a woman's silhouette."
What's the process? Wendy will talk you through what shape would suit you and then discuss what kind of material you want. As well as a straw, straw braid and coloured panama, she will make blocked fabric hats, although they are more time consuming. Feathers are also used for both winter and summer hats.
How long will it take? "I like a couple of weeks to source materials and come up with shapes and then put the hat together. I also like to do a fitting before I finish the hat as people can imagine a different hat to the one you're making." Price range? From £150 for a made-to-measure hat.
Who buys? In the summer Wendy makes hats mainly for weddings, although her headpieces also adorn the heads of party girls, and her customised candy-coloured cowboy hats are popular with the streetwise crowd.
Ambitions? "I would like to do a collection because then you can be more creative and have an idea running through your work. But I like the way my business is growing organically - it's getting back to the old idea of personalised service where you would go to your own milliner."
Wendy Judge can be contacted at 012824070 or 086-8865838
