Monday, 2 February 2015

Where it all started..

So I thought I would start the blog off by telling you where my love of hats all started! I’m currently studying Art and Design at West Cheshire College. In the first year we work through different units in different areas of art; fine art, fashion/textiles and 3D. When I started fashion and textiles I became obsessed! I spent all my time filling my sketchbook with sample after sample to the stage where the sketchbook started to come apart.. yep I fell in love with the subject utterly and completely.

Our brief was about skins and surfaces of animals and the different patterns they make. I looked at a wide range of animals but fell for flamingos. They are extraordinary birds, did you know a flock of flamingos is called a flamboyance? I know countless random facts about flamingos now but I won’t bore you with them! After choosing my animal that led me onto Alice in Wonderland as they use a flamingo in the croquet game. I looked at a lot of other things but Alice in Wonderland really inspired me.

Flamingos and Alice in Wondeland just fitted perfectly together for me. Alice in Wonderland is so flamboyant and over the top, the colours are so bright and imaginative. I wanted to portray this is my piece, I decided to make a hat inspired by the mad hatters hat and by flamingos. So obviously everything was pink on my hat! I used a lot of different techniques; weaving, fake fur, twisted chords and in the end created something that is exactly what I imagined in my head. Has that ever happened for you? You have a vision, a picture in your head of what you want something to look like and then once you’ve actually made it it’s exactly what you had envisaged and even more! It’s an amazing feeling!


That’s the story of my love of hats so far, but I’m now having lessons in creating fascinators/small hats. I’m using all hand sewing and making them out of sinema which is my new obsession! I’m going to document my lessons and my progress on here, hopefully you will see some amazing hats soon! In the meantime here’s some pictures off my flamingo hat! 


Sophie..

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