BACK IN HONG KONG

So I am back in the old +852! 

...INDEFINITELY...

(cue scary music)

I have been settling in for the past couple of weeks, unpacking my millinery equipment in the office, purchasing more up-to-date electronics (ones that don't overheat after 10 minutes or don't connect to the internet) so that I can do useful PR things like facebooking, tweeting, instagram-ing, pinterest-ing and blogging!

I am also currently in HATWOMAN! I opened the shop for the first time and it was... exhilarating.

So much POWER!!! ...It may go to my head.

I have a couple of other full days in the shop while The Mother is away, and I also need to prepare a small stock of fascinators to be on sale at the HATWOMAN pop-up shop at this year's ShaTin Jockey Club races! (Where I will also be hanging out - Saturday 12th October, Sunday 27th October and Sunday 3rd November!)

THANKYOU, THANKYOU VERY MUCH!

I'M HERE ALL WEEK!

...MONTH...

...YEAR...

...S...

xxx

Summer Summary

Here is a late summary of the project I was doing over this past summer:

I started off very well, as you might have seen from my first blog post - drawing out designs, creating them, etc. etc. Pretty quickly, though, I became very very behind schedule.

On one particular Saturday, I was so eager to get to the beach, I bashed out 3 hats in a couple of hours. .....Predictably, they were shit.

Like this one.

Close to the end of my estimated schedule, I was 10 hats behind - a whole week! I spent the 7th week, making all the 60's and the 70's, trying desperately hard to catch up and be on time. The next Monday, I made two more, still on schedule at 82... then on Tuesday I found out that the whole thing wasn't happening anymore. 

AAAAARRRGGHH.

Admittedly, I knew from the beginning that it wasn't set in stone. In fact, it was a very offhand comment made by somebody almost a year ago; there was a very large possibility that they wouldn't take the hats, even if I made them. However, they scrapped the entire thing this year, so it wasn't a case of they saw the hats I'd produced, thought they were hideous and went with someone else.

How do I feel about it? Well at the time I was bummed, feeling like I'd wasted my summer... Thinking about it though, I hurried through some of them, and am kind of relieved they won't see the light of day. Besides, it was fun to have to make something in bulk and have a schedule to keep to! 

Also, a few of them are on sale at the Hatwoman pop-up shop at the Hong Kong horse racing in Shatin, four of which have already gone! Hooray!

The whole 84 of them... somehow made 2 more than I thought... are available to see here on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.306553822775973.63858.193675597397130&type=1

For the ones that aren't being sold by Hatwoman, they are either going to be dismantled and used for parts (the ones I made that Saturday, for instance), or to be sold separately, if I can pull it off!

Am now studying for a Higher Diploma in Millinery at the Kensington and Chelsea College (previously the HNC... still the same course, but due to government funding the college have changed the title so the students don't have to pay through the nose - sweeeet). More on that later.

If you're keen on buying any of the remaining ones, let me know by contacting me on Facebook or Twitter!
Here, have another photo!

Well, THAT was predictable.

I said it, and so I jinxed myself.

I am now behind again. Or still behind, and yesterday I was just overly optimistic/an idiot.

But, I did swear by Odin's Beard that there would be photos, so here are some:

Here are the ones that are completely completed, headbands, combs, labels and all:

(The middle row are Saturns and Saucers)

Here are the ones that I still have to label, etc:

(The pointy bases are drops, the round are domes)

Heading to the last horse races of the season now, followed by Ladies Night (girls drink for freeeeeeeeeeeee). Buut since I'm not ahead of my schedule now, I still have to come into work tomorrow and DO STUFF. AARGH. Toss it.

Tuesday 10th July, people!

Do you know what today is?

Today is not only my beautiful barrister brother's birthday (also the birthday of my lovely little cousin Lian), it HAPPENS to be the day I am back. On. Schedule!

Or, dare I say it, ahead of schedule?

...

No, I don't dare. I would definitely be jinxing myself.

Anyway, I've decorated quite a few hats today, which means I can spend tomorrow concentrating on attaching headbands, combs and labels to the Saturns and Saucers, and headbands and labels to the Domes and Drops. Don't know what I'm talking about? That's okay, I shall have photos up tomorrow.

BY THE BEARD OF ODIN, I SHALL HAVE PHOTOS UP TOMORROW!

Happy Handover!*

Today is the 11th day of my challenge, and for the second Monday in a row I have completely forgotten it's a public holiday:

June 23               Tuen Ng Festival (Saturday)

July 1                  Hong Kong SAR Establishment Day (Sunday)

July 2*                 The day following Hong Kong SAR Establishment Day (Monday)

*Happy Day Following Hong Kong SAR Establishment Day!

15 years yesterday!

Fireworks - happy.

Public holiday - happy.

Political protesters marching the streets - not so happy.

Shops closed meaning I cannot buy supplies like I had planned - annoyed and grumpy.

Anyway, I've *mostly* done 20 hats, so I'm roughly on target, yay! Here's a couple of previews.

The new ones... my office is starting to get a bit crowded...

This one is my baby... I am so tempted to keep her!

Quite proud of this idea... Pheasant feather wrapped around the edge of a saucer. Going to add a burgundy flower to the headband when I attach it.

Tomorrow I plan on buying buttloads of headbands and combs and attaching them to the hats that need them. Then I'll have a little photoshoot and upload them so I can pack away the finished hats and start on the next lot!

3 Days In

Ahem.

So, I didn't post photos on the first day like I hoped I could.

Now I've had 3 and I'm still quite far behind, so this is just a brief update and hopefully I can catch up before the weekend.

*************************

Excuse me, quick break to show The Boss how to use the dualview application for her laptop/screen.

*************************

Wow. Like teaching a puppy to ride a go kart. 

So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, hats. 

DAY 1

Designs

As you can see, my very first effort was scrubbed:

According to The Boss, Hong Kong people won't buy anything remotely Chinese, because they think local stuff should be dirt cheap. Fair enough. This design instead:

Hats

I would like to add veiling to this one, but will have to search for it on the weekend.

This one is not remotely finished. So slow.

DAY 2:

Designs

 

Hats:

Would have instinctively added something else, like beading detail, but there's just not enough time! I need to learn to forego the extras if I'm going to meet my quota...

This really does need something else. I'm thinking dark grey cord. Attached tassels are tempting me, but it's possible that could be too Chinese-y.

DAY 3:

Designs

I was really excited about design No. 6.! The ivory mushroom shape was my favourite... pinned a ribbon of dangling pearls to the rim, only to discover when I put it on that I looked like a lamp. I love lamp, but I doubt customers here will. 

New idea:

Bandana hat! Pirate mushroom, if you will.

I like the result, it's almost colonial:

Here's the other one. Needs a hairband, as you can tell from my phone balancing it on top of the mannequin.... Also needs some of my "signature" (The Boss calls them) anemone flowers. 

You can't tell from the photo, but the lace drapes over one eye. 

Must make sure it doesn't look too funerial. Funeral-y? Funeral-like. ...Oh... Funereal, apparently.

Aaaaaand now it's 1pm on Day 4 and I'm writing this blog instead of playing catch up. Crap!

Bye!

100 Hats in 50 Days

I have about 2 1/2 months, here in Hong Kong, to fill an order which has not been finalised. Supposedly, I am to provide 100 affordable hats to potentially supply the racing events at the start of Autumn. However, since I can't churn out 100 hats at the drop of a ... well,... hat, I am going to have to make them and hope that the order is eventually needed.

So. From today, I have 50 working days to complete (ideally) 100 hats. Can this be done? I myself have never completed an entire hat in one day, but these require no blocking. In fact, if I am to stick to the budget, I cannot block them myself. Besides, with only 2 hat blocks to my name, the results would be rather limited...

I have 21 bases already, ordered from Randall Ribbons (nightmare, I won't go into it, this isn't a rant blog). 3 pieces each of 7 different styles. 7 different colours with each style having a different combination of colours. I have brought along several pieces of fabric from my hoarder's den that match, so I already have a bit of a head start. By the time I have run out of these bases, hopefully I will have found a source of others here in Hong Kong. The majority of the remaining 79 hats are likely to be small, fascinator-type things. Thankfully perfectly acceptable here in HK.

ANYWAY.

Starting from today.

2 hats.

Hopefully will be able to upload photos of them by this evening.

Wish me luck!

Hatwoman

I AM A MILLINER. I AM. NO, REALLY.

I made the decision to go into millinery almost with a shrug and a non-committal "Meh. I could do that..." After acquiring a Bachelor's degree in Art History at the University of Nottingham, I, like most of my friends, was nowhere close to knowing what I wanted and millinery seemed as plausible an option as any. But as I've progressed over the past year, learned the basics, gained experience and begun to develop my own style, I've come to realise - I fucking LOVE IT.

It all began, as it often does, with My Mother. She decided a couple of years ago, suddenly and without warning, that she should start wearing a hat every day. In part because it was more flattering, and partly because it doubled as a tool to disguise yourself in plain sight. Unfortunately now, as one of the only regular hat wearers in Hong Kong, that second point has probably been rendered null and void. At first I thought she was just asserting her right to be a little bit odd, and I chuckled and went along with it. Now, of course, I realise she was ahead of the curve. As per usual. Or, depending on how you look at it, waaayyy behind the curve. People gave up wearing hats on a daily basis in the 1960's, when the fashions at the time began to focus on hair and the shapes created by stylists like Vidal Sassoon. Indeed, the millinery industry has mostly survived on the back of traditional events that require wearing hats; weddings, races and the like. As a being that puts little to no effort into taming her hair/mane, or care when applying make-up, hats are the simplest and most fabulous solution, darling.

After a short while, it dawned on Mother Dear that it was nigh on impossible to find quality hats in Hong Kong, and she needed to take matters into her own hands if she was going to be Odd But Cool. She dreamed of a magical place, a place where fashion pilgrims could come and stand in awe at the heretofore unheard-of collection of beautiful, sculptural, functional, bizarre, but all hand crafted, completely individual pieces of millinery. April 2010: the dream becomes a reality. If you believe this to be an exaggeration, go check it out for yourself - HATWOMAN, SHOP 209, MAN YEE ARCADE, 68 DES VOEUX ROAD CENTRAL, HONG KONG. And if you're not lucky enough to live in Hong Kong, take a gander at the website: http://www.hatwoman.hk/eng/index.html

This astonishing and sudden move by Mother Darling simultaneously seemed idiosyncratic and made perfect sense. Ever since retiring from soliciting - hee hee - I mean lawyerdom, and during the years she was a foreign office spouse to My Father, she had visualised several business ideas that she would occasionally vaguely pursue. Until Hatwoman, none of these venture seedlings ever developed further than the germination stages and when she finally followed through, I was delighted. Proud. Inspired.

I've always been more creative than academic; I think it was obvious from the get-go that Big Bro had acquired all the brains in that department... The memory of Mama trying to teach me to read springs to mind. I believe she worried that if I was having trouble reading Ant and Bee at the age of two, I would be destined for a life working behind the counter at a fast food chain. So, when Hatwoman opened at the long-awaited close of my academic career, I knew instantly that millinery would be something I would enjoy, and something that I suspected I might be good at. This statement, even now, when I have been making hats for a year, still feels uncomfortably cocky.

However, whether I myself am good or not, the subtle power of hats is undeniable. Wearing them continues to be edgy and unusual - people today seem to believe that it requires a certain amount of confidence. This is not so - while wearing a hat attracts more attention, it can also be used to either create a flattering light on your face, or as a shield to hide completely, if you're in that kind of mood. Hats can be used to make you confident. Mysterious. Coy. Invisible. Alarming. Anything you want.

After a year, and for the foreseeable future, I remain in love with the fashion, the art, the design and the creation that makes up the millinery world. And My Mother remains my inspiration.