So this week I thought I’d share a bit more about my millinery work that I have completed over the last few years, chat about the millinery courses I have done and generally natter about why I love making hats so much.
This is the very first piece of millinery I ever made back in the depths of time. I was still at Uni studying fashion and textiles and during a reading week I took myself off to London to do a one week course with Rose Cory. It was a great introduction to millinery and Rose is a super teacher, at the time I had been toying with the idea of learning hat making for ages but for some reason I was really nervous about actually doing a course. I’d always loved hats and accessories and seemed to be more interested in designing them that the fashion designs I was working on for my degree so I asked for money for Christmas to do the course and buy the materials I needed and I’ll never forget my first day with Rose when I made this fascinator I was so excited.
Well after that I was hooked, during the course I also made this beige cloche that I mentioned the other week and I carried on experimenting with the techniques I used during my degree making a series of VERY basic fascinators as part of my final collection.
After finishing my degree I did a couple of other short courses over the next couple of years, the course fees are pretty expensive and they are mainly held in London so it always meant travelling up and staying over and usually also taking time off work to attend them . But it was defiantly worth the effort and expense and it was the work I did in these courses that convinced me that Millinery was something I wanted to professionally. I find the process of creating a hat so exciting , there is always an element of surprise when the final piece is placed on the head and I love the way the process evolves over time from the initially blocking of the shape of the hat to sewing on the final trim and lining.
Last year I did a BTEC level two in millinery and hat design at Kensington and Chelsea college. This was a 6 month course lead by Noel Stewart. It was an amazing course that focussed on creating Fashion forward designs and really developed my creativity and experience. It was great being pushed to complete hats to high end professional standard and I enjoyed being given an opportunity to combine the millinery skills and my fashion design background.
I finished the course having created a collection 6 hats based around the woodland creatures and birds. I am so proud of the work I created during those months and it the course gave me a firm foundation of what I wanted the signature style of my work to be and the confidence to start making hats and accessories professionally. At the moment I am working on a couple of private commissions and also designing a range of accessories that I hope to start selling over the next few months. Starting this blog was a real big step for me, I’m usually pretty shy about sharing my work and ideas and it’s great to have a place that helps me gain confidence in this.
Thanks for letting me babble on about my work for a bit today, if you are interested in attending a millinery course here is a list of the websites for some of the courses I have booked ( plus some other pretty amazing looking courses:
Rose Cory Millinery Courses : http://www.rosecory.co.uk/
Short Courses @University Arts London : http://www.arts.ac.uk/courses/shortcourses/
Kensington and Chelsea College: http://www.kcc.ac.uk/fashion-and-millinery/
Also if you fancy seeing more of my work please check out my online portfolio at -www.shownd.com/jc_heaton
Hope you have a great week, Jessie xx
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