A Unique Millinery Voice

A personal voice, or point of view, is something that all artists must find for themselves through their creative process. In the fashion industry, it is especially important to have a style that stands out and makes your brand recognizable. Finding your own millinery voice takes time and experimentation. Hat making offers numerous opportunities to learn new techniques and try new materials. Sometimes it can be overwhelming when you are first starting out.

From Recreating to Reimagining

The explosion of millinery courses online has been great, especially for milliners who live in rural areas. I look at these courses as “adding a tool to my toolbox,” a skill set to draw upon. It is by learning a variety of skills that you discover what materials you like to work with and what materials you do not. And as you learn what you like to make as a milliner, you develop your own style.

As a rural milliner, I used Hat Academy to get my start in millinery. I still love taking their courses, especially since they are always available to go back to. As I took more classes I noticed that most of their millinery instructors had developed their own signature techniques. I saw this as a practical way to develop my own millinery voice as well.

Early on in my career, I took a crinoline course that taught me how to make wired spirals. After recreating the headpiece for the course (above left), I went on to use this technique to make my own avant-garde piece of millinery (above right). This is what started me on my path of experimenting with crinoline and sculptural design.

Keep Experimenting

If you find a material that you are especially interested in working with, keep searching for new places to learn about it. Look for vintage millinery books; reproductions are inexpensive and are great sources of inspiration for modern technique development. Also look for vintage examples of the material or style you want to develop – Etsy and historical fashion groups on Facebook are great resources. It is also interesting to deconstruct vintage hats to learn new processes or ideas.

Mainly, though, just experiment. A lot.

Approach your materials with an open mind so that you can think of new ways to manipulate them. Eventually, you will realize that you lean towards a certain process. Your millinery expertise will develop naturally the more you practice your specific skill set and you will begin to notice a recurring statement throughout your work. And when you see that, you will know that you are on the path to finding your own unique perspective – your own millinery voice.

Photo Credits:
Headpieces by Amy Fowler
Photography by The Portrait Kitchen
Model: Jemimah Nicole 

About the Author

Amy Fowler is the creator of the bespoke, California-based Millinery by Amy Fowler label. She also runs Humboldt Haberdashery, an online millinery supplier.

See Amy’s full bio HERE.