Issue 125 August 2016 Francisco Rico Vanessa Coley The Hat Stand Pinokpok and more... the e-magazine for those who make hats Issue 125 August 2016 Contents: Francisco Rico 2 Meet one of London's hottest new designers - maker of will.i.am's Met Gala hat. Hat of the Month 6 A veiled mini topper by Vanessa Coley. The Hat Stand 11 The Sheffield pop-up returns as a testament to the power of teamwork. Know Your Millinery Materials 15 LilyM Millinery Supplies show us how pinokpok is made. Letter to the Editor 18 Using leather in millinery. The Back Page 19 A South American hat competition and how to contact us. Cover/Back Page: Images by Ellie Grace Photography Hats by Imogen’s Imagination and Amanda Moon Headwear 1 www.hatalk.com FRANCISCO RICO 2 www.hatalk.com Francisco Rico was born and raised move to London in 2012 to pursue working for him. He creates two in Seville, Spain. After spending his new passion - designing and couture hat collections a year, as well several years undertaking business producing hats. Since then, he has as concept collections and private studies and working in management studied under royal milliner Rose commissions. He has worked on and development for a number of Cory, taken classes at Central Saint pieces for some very high profile international companies, Francisco Martins and completed the HND clients, including a recent project for stumbled upon the world of hats Millinery programme at Kensington recording artist will.i.am. in Madrid and realised that he had and Chelsea College. found his true vocation. Read on to learn more about this Francisco now has his own London interesting and talented new hat This discovery inspired Francisco to studio with a great team of milliners designer... 3 www.hatalk.com Where did you learn how to make hats? I’ve found that you never stop learning new things in millinery. I graduated from Kensington and Chelsea College and I have learnt from, and worked with, some of the London's best milliners, from Rose Cory to Piers Atkinson. I actually worked as Piers’ production manager before deciding to go out by myself. What are your favourite millinery materials? I usually work with uncommon millinery materials but my favourites are definitely fur and leather. And your favourite techniques? When it comes to techniques, I usually combine theatrical with classic and contemporary. I am currently making hats for Aladdin, the new West End show, and at the same time working on my new couture collection. Do you have a 'specialty' - a certain style that you are best known for? My style is quite minimal with a twist of the 50s. It’s quiet structured, with clean and defined lines. What are some of the inspirations behind your work? I am a cinema lover, so some of my inspiration comes from there. I also love architecture and it’s something that is always somehow incorporated into my designs. My new SS17 collection is inspired by the Andalusian Baroque golden virgins and the amazing choreography of the American dancer, Martha Graham. If you could create a hat for anyone, living or dead, who would it be? I would go for Mick Jagger. He combines a mix of style and personality that I really admire. 4 www.hatalk.com will.i.am made the headlines by wearing your visor hat to the Met Gala in New York City at the beginning of May (left). What an honour to have such a big star wear one of your pieces to what is arguably the fashion industry's most important red carpet event of the year! How did this commission come about? His personal stylist knew about the work of myself and my colleague Sju (www.bysju.com). She contacted us and we developed this project together. We made him two bespoke hats for the Met Gala and he then commissioned 20 more bespoke pieces - a new design for all of his dancers for a show in the Royal Albert Hall. How did the process of designing for will.i.am work? Did he send design sketches of what he wanted or choose from designs that you had already created? The theme of the Met gala this year was 'Manus x Machina.' He was interested in something striking and big. We sent them a proposal and they loved it. And what is this hat made from? Laser cut acrylic visor and a top quality black fur felt. Francisco Rico won the 2016/17 edition of the Emergent Creatives Programme of the Hospital Club Foundation. His studio is located in Wapping, Central London, and his designs are available from www.franciscorico.co.uk. 5 www.hatalk.com Hat of the Month by Vanessa Coley Vanessa Coley, a retired teacher from Southwest England, recently attended Alcor Hat Week in Spain. We asked her to tell us more about the mini top hat which she made for the occasion (left), her personal millinery journey and her experience of attending Spain's newest hat-centric event... How did you learn to make hats? I’ve made hats on and off over many years - usually soft hats using dressmaking techniques or example pieces for teaching projects. A couple of years ago I bought The Modern Girl’s Guide to Hatmaking by Mary Jane Baxter and this was the start of my current interest. One of the projects is a mini topper and, using the suppliers’ guide provided, I was able to purchase the materials I needed. I’ve refined the process quite a lot since then and am now happy with the way I make the mini toppers. Last Autumn I discovered HATalk and since subscribing and downloading all the issues there has been no stopping me. I’ve purchased a couple of small blocks and using the various articles in the magazine have learned how to use sinamay and block silk hats. I’ve used crin in lots of different ways and have continued to develop my ribbon flower-making techniques (which I also use to make jewellery). I’ve recently started dying a lot of the materials I use, including silk bias cut ribbon for the flowers. 6 www.hatalk.com Describe the process of making this mini topper. around the base of the crown, adding turnings to one of I don’t use hat blocks for my mini toppers. In this these. I used Bondaweb to attach the domette and silk sense each one is unique. For the crown I selected an fabric to the brim base. After wiring the edge and hand- appropriate sized can - this hat was made on a lovely stitching a bias strip of domette, I added a bias strip of slim can of mushrooms - and used this as a starting point fabric to cover the edge. Before stitching the crown to for cutting two pieces of buckram - one actual size and the brim, I hand-stitched a piece of millinery grosgrain one with turnings to cut down on bulk. After sewing the ribbon to the inner edge and then hand-stitched both seam I steamed each end of the tube and stretched them parts together. Because I couldn’t be bothered to get until I was pleased with the shape. I then wired the top out my sewing machine, I hand-stitched a piece of silk edge using millinery wire. This gave me a stable edge to to make the lining and glued this in place behind the draw round to create the tip. After adding about 15mm grosgrain ribbon. seam allowance, I cut flaps which were bent down ready to attach to the sideband with glue. Once dry, I gave it a I make all my own flowers for my hats, so now I had good ironing to flatten the turnings and then used soap to decide how to decorate the hat. I wanted to try out to further smooth the seams. My ‘block’ for this process making the birdcage veil from HATalk Issue 105, so was my sawn-off rolling pin! I sprayed up some veiling with pink spray paint and sewed it onto a piece of grosgrain the same colour as I covered the whole crown with domette to provide a the hat band. I made three small roses and a sprig of tiny really smooth base for the shell fabric - a piece of silk blossom which I attached to the veiling and then to the dupion. After pinning on the tip, I stretched the side piece hat. For the back embellishment, I added a larger rose, in place and, after pinning, hand-stitched it all together. an organza ribbon leaf, a feather and some black lace to To make the brim, I used two pieces of buckram and drew give it a bit of a Spanish feel. 7 www.hatalk.com Tell us about your visit to Alcor Hat Week. It turned out that he was Amador Roldan Jimenez of Hat I found out about Alcor Hat Week via the How2hats Blocks Roland and the husband of Eugenia Jimenez. He newsletter. It was at a time when I was due to be in was so friendly and later in the evening insisted that we Spain, to the north-west of Malaga, so it wasn’t going to meet Eugenia who had presented a truly lovely Spring be much of a trek to get to Sevilla. As I had no idea what Collection. to expect I did not enter a piece for the exhibition, but decided to plan my stay so that I could join the Hat Walk What I found most strange was that I was the only person on the Sunday.