Two summers ago, I spent my August bank holiday weekend making a leopard-print fedora, that I called the ‘three-day fedora’. This summer I was similarly-employed but on a hat that’s been 3 years in the making. Sometimes, these things just take longer because they do….
I bought the felt hood in August 2016 at Ultramod, Paris’s dream haberdashery. I must have been possessed by late-summer colour frenzy because I immediately loved its fuzzy raspberry tone even though I had no idea what I would do with it.
A year later, I pulled it out again and started experimenting with shapes and trims, but now with a darker feel using antique jet fragments. I could not make a decision so instead I made the leopard fedora. The raspberry hood kept calling though and I got as far as stiffening the hood and preparing it for blocking before I again, got blocked and there it stayed for months.
Then, on the verge of giving it away, I changed my mind and started trying ribbon trims – teal, folkloric gold, blossom pink – before eventually coming back to black jet. I had a recent market find: an antique fragment that had the perfect taper.
Once I got started, the hat chose the shape for itself. While my leopard fedora fell naturally into its dimpled crown, this one stayed resolutely but softly, a cloche. Sometimes the hat just tells you what to do with it if you let it.
nellvoyager 