Hat Design Research - Books

I got four books from the library on hat design to help me with research and inspiration. This is what I found.

1.Design Museum - Fifty Hats That Changed The World
   Robert Anderson, Conran Octopus Ltd, London, 2011

 The fez style of hat might be a good base hat to expand and elaborate upon. Plus it covers almost all of the skull, so would be idea for 'protecting people's brains'.

 Cloche equally so and quite a popular style. This style is very prominent in Claudia Schulz's work.

This 'Shoe hat' by Elsa Schiaperelli and Salvador Dali toes the line between innovation and the bizarre. It's good inspiration as the functional claims of my hat will be quite outrageous, so crazy styling will suit it quite nicely. I am probably going to look into Elsa Schiaperelli's work in more detail next because she has featured in three of these four books.

 Cristobal Balenciaga's Spiral hat was quite modern and futuristic for its time. I could attempt to design something similar to this to give my hats the same characteristics.

 Pierre Cardin's Cosmos hat was inspired by astronauts and space travel. It's a fairly ridiculous and impractical design but you can definitely see where he got his inspiration from.

 This picnic basket hat by David Shilling was designed and made for his mother for the horse racing event Royal Ascot. Ridiculous and impractical but then again a lot of high fashion is.

 One of Philip Treacy's designs again. This time with swirling feathers attached to a small pill-box style hat. I really like this design, but using feathers in my hat wouldn't be practical. Unless I found a way to recreate the look of feathers in a different material.

 These hair-like hats are by House of Flora and Neil Moodie. The collection was called Iconic Heads because each hat was based on a famous person's hair or a particular famous hairstyle. I really like this idea as it gives the feeling that the wearing doesn't even have a hat on. I also like the bold colours and shapes.

 This futuristic perspex helmet by Hussein Chayalan has LEDs inside to illuminate the person's face and the design etched onto the inside of the head piece. I could think about using some sort of electronics or LED in my designs to reinforce it's technological capabilities of repelling alien mind reading.

 I think this minimal helmet by Franz Fernandez for Brian Lichteberg is really interesting. It is based on a motorcycle helmet, and even though it is very abstract and geometric it is still recognisable as one. It also still gives the feeling of being protective even though it is probably quite a fragile piece.

 This last piece of hat design is by Noel Stewart. It is described as a 'creative combination of Sculpture, millinery and architechture' and also 'challenging and baffling'. It's very impractical as far as being an everyday hat goes. But as a piece of art, it's beautiful. The tall building design extending down into black tapes is unusual and obviously quite disorientating for the wearing.

I found looking at this book really useful as it has some iconic pieces and some very up to date piece, which were both good for inspiration and helping me thing about aspects of my design like practicality, colour, material, shape, size, weight, style and function.


2.Hats - A History of Fashion in Head wear
   Hilda Amphlett, Richard Sadler Ltd, Buckinghamshire, 1974

I got this book for historical inspiration as I thought I could look at some of the more crazy ancient hat designs. As well as some hats specific to different countries and cultures.

This was a big book and there was plenty to read and look at. But I only took pictures of what I thought was really useful or interesting.  I will definitely be referring back to these photographs when I come to design my hats.

3.Hats - Status, Style and Glamour
  Colin McDowell, Thames and Hudson Ltd, London, 1992

 Another feathery design by Philip Treacy.

 Philip Treacy, Nicolas Oakwell and Stephen Jones all wearing their own designs.

 A selection of hats made to be worn at Royal Ascot or other horse racing events.

 Elsa Schiaperelli again. Here we see some initial design ideas including the infamous 'Shoe Hat'.

These are some designs by the artist Philippe Model. I particularly like his way of drawing hat designs. However, I think a couple of his designs are perhaps a little too boldly coloured for my purposes. I may look into his work a little further later on.

These designs by Jacques Pinturier are quite interesting. Especially the design on the top right which is a paper mache geisha that lounges across the head.

These designs by Olivier Chanan are quite classically styled. I think she blue design on the right is quite interesting as well as the two turban-like designs on the left.

These shell designs also caught my eye. They are very organic but also quite modern and futuristic at the same time.

These hats are by a designer called Sybilla. The designs are meant to be very organic and also comfortable and natural to wear. This is a factor I should keep in mind when designing my hats as it is important that the wearer be comfortable to a certain degree.

I think it has been quite useful for me to look at this book because it has provided me with lots of inspiration. It has also made me think more about the ergonomics of the hat. I won't be able to use tin/aluminium foil on its own as it can be quite a sharp or scratchy material. I will need to think about some sort of soft barrier between the foil and the person's head, perhaps felt or another fabric, maybe even something a big more unconventional like netting or softened cardboard.

4. Hats - A Stylish History and Collectors Guide
  Jody Shields, Clarkson N Potter Inc, New York 1991

I thought these hats would be good designs to consider as they are simple enough and could be expanded on.

I particularly liked the shape on this design on the right, especially the large hat pin. I would love to incorporate hat pins into my designs. I think they are a great embellishment and always make any hat look expensive and high class.

I really like this design. It's sort of a female version of the flat cap, with a little more structure obviously. This would be a great design to start with. The flat top is a great surface to display many types of hat embellishment like flowers, feathers and also more modern sculptural fabric techniques.

These three simple designs also caught my eye because of the cloche-like shape and adaptability of them.

These metallic designs on the right also caught my eye as they are quite directly linked to how my designs will probably look. They is a fine line however between metallic looking modern and looking tacky, so I realise I am going to have to be very careful.

I think looking at this book has been very helpful. Some of the designs have been very inspirational and I think I am now ready to start drawing out some ideas.