Jo Yee Wong – United Kingdom

Dichotomy

Category: Traditional

Description

For this brief I wanted to explore the possibilities of using materials that wouldn’t normally be seen together and to use those materials in a way that isn’t normally associated with their properties. So I chose a traditionally heavy medium, in the leather, and wove fine strips of it with straw in a delicate but regular pattern.

For the brim I used the contrast between the messy random pattern of the Tangle Sinamay and leather cord to contradict and contrast the formal pattern of the crown hopefully fusing together the two opposite and disparate worlds of formality and chaos.

Materials

• Straw
• Leather Cord
• Sinamay
• Millinery wire
• Floral wire
• Cotton Organdie fabric
• Buckram
• Acrylic paints
• Dylon dyes
• Paris net
• Petersham ribbon
• Threads

Techniques

• Hand woven straw and leather crown blocked onto wooden hat block and stiffened.
• Tangle Sinamay blocked brim, stiffened and wire edged, hand stitched leather strips sewn onto brim surface. Blocked on a IKEA 18 inch bamboo plate.
• Hand dyed pink hat band.
• Hand dyed pink and yellow ribbon strips
• Organdie flower petals sewn together and hand painted with watered down acrylic and fabric medium. Petals have been shaped using heated brass flower tools. Flower stamens made with buckram strips dipped in acrylic.
• Blocked Paris net inner crown.
• Hand sewn polyester lining finished with Petersham ribbon.