contract millinery part one: Shilling Shockers!

[labricoleuse]

Occasionally, I am contacted through this blog (or sometimes as a result of trade journal publications or presentations at professional conferences) about doing contract millinery for various independent clients. I have done these kinds of jobs for regional theaters and dance companies, performance artists, burlesque starlets, television and film,

Comments

[purejuice]

kewel! looking fwd to the next installment.

[nyahnyahnyah]

I hadn't heard of ice wool before - what makes it preferable to other options for smoothing out hat bases?

good question!

[labricoleuse]

It is about the same loft as a very thin quilt batting, but it has an intrinsic foundation of a very loose knitted nylon thread. This makes it a stronger mulling layer than plain batting, A more forgiving medium than flannel or fleece, and gives it good structural integrity over the life of the hat.

It also can be easily manipulated over extreme three-dimensional curvatures which I didn't have on this hat shape, but imagine say, the extreme cup-like dome form of a cloche crown. A single piece of ice wool could be made to smoothly cover that crown.

You can see the structure of it in an unstretched state on this product page for Richard the Thread.

It's not cheap. When you buy it as cut yardage stateside, it's something like $30 a yard? We purchase ours in full bolts wholesale from Whalley's UK.