to up-style or not to up-style

What is the opinion of up-styling older hats?

I love to take a poor thing from the op-shop and turn its life around. What's everybody else's opinion on this?

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Permalink Reply by Sharon Panozzo July 23, 2015 at 10:57pm

This is also a great way to study millinery techniques, especially is you can get one from a good designer.

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Cutmore July 29, 2015 at 9:41am

I think if you can take something old and give it a new life and purpose that's great. It saves it from potentially being thrown out and it will make it a unique "one off" piece.

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Permalink Reply by Sophie Cooke July 29, 2015 at 7:14pm

I love giving charity shop hats a new lease of life! Taking something that has been discarded and making it into a individual new creation for someone else to treasure, what a great life story. Sometimes it's the kindest thing to do to a hat that has seen better days and can't be renovated.

I included one of my projects into a blog about Sheffield's old hat shops as part of a pop up shop collaboration with two other Sheffield-based milliners earlier in the year...it's a bit of a beast, but scroll down for the before and after pics and the story behind the milliner who made the original hat.

The Hat Stand- Looking Back: Sheffield's Hat Shops

This 80's leftover was beyond redemption, but was made from a beautiful fine weave straw with a linen effect (that I just can't seem to find from a supplier here in the UK!) which makes it totally unique. Plus, the brim is still waiting to be made up in another design, great value for materials I can't source as new ;o)

Images by Ellie Grace Photography