Do you name your hats?
When starting out in business I was receiving orders for particular styles based on the blocks I had, so I decided to make it easy for myself to recall the shape of the hat by giving my blocks titles. These names included Princess, Duchess, Contessa, Classic, Elite. When labelling each hat I would add the colour and something to symbolise the trim - "Pink Magnolia Princess” or “Cream Bow Classic”. These sounded very feminine and did not hinder the sale of hats.
How do you name your hats?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bonnie Blanchard
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Well, naming my hats it took a while. But I finally came up with something that made me burst out loud laughing as I was putting the finishing touches on one of my little creations. When it seemed that I was going to be making many more hats, I thought I needed to call myself something; so I've called myself HATAHAVIT, a division of Poppysquash Design Studios. The name has stuck! Poppysquash is a mixed-media art studio where I make all sorts of things, mostly out of fabric, and making hats and silk flowers was an off-shoot of this. But it seems now that I am focusing on hats and silk flowers. And I'm beginning to get referrals, especially for weddings! So now I just hope I can price it right!!!! And it all started when I took my first hat making class at Hat Academy!
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Permalink Reply by Sharon Panozzo -
I do not name my hats. I started out trying to name them but when I got my ETSY store I realized no one is going to enter those names as search terms so I decided to go more generic. I usually use color, shape, and era for my hat descriptions. Once in a while I will have a client give a hat a name and that is fun and it usually sticks.
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Permalink Reply by Jon Busby
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Hi Elaine,
Can I come at this from a photographer/graphic designer’s point of view? Ialways encourage milliners to name their hats mainly for selfish reasons so when I am editing images from a photo shoot it is easier to say ‘Blanche’ or ‘Cairo’ rather than ‘the one with the yellow rose it may be a pillbox hat, it was on x model’s head.’
When I photograph I split each hat into it’s own named folder or album. I prefer to manage 10 albums each with 20 images rather than one album of 200. That way I can focus on one hat at a time.
Personally I tend to like short punchy names. They are also more easy for a client (and Google) to remember. It also provides an opportunity to be creative with a name. From a marketing point of view adding a name is very useful in how I layout an image and wrap text around it.
One final (promise) add is I also encourage milliners to add a couple of other things; first what is the story behind that hat, the narrative, the inspiration and secondly what is the construction methodology and materials used. I wouldn’t necessarily lay these out on an image but they give the buyer an opportunity to drill down to a deeper story about the hat that they may be about to invest in. This creates a deeper connection both with the hat and the milliner. I am doing a lot of experimenting with that at the moment in my photo design work.
I hope that helps.
Jon
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Permalink Reply by Janet Andoh
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I used to name my hats and fascinators after the first client who ordered that particular design. Then I started getting into trouble because friends (and even family members) would call me, upset that I hadn’t named a particular design after them. Even explaining the reasoning behind the names didn’t help. Somewhere along the line, I decided to post my designs on Etsy and then realized the names would not help in any way, as no-one searched by this category. Colors then came into play for most of my pieces but I must admit, I do miss naming them … so watch out!
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Permalink Reply by Wanda Broadwater
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I hadn't thought of naming hats. I like the idea though! When the time comes, it will depend on how I sell them (directly or wholesale). I can always name them for myself and still sell them by shape and color!
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