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It’s a misty November morning and in the eaves of Street Farm Workshops – a restored 17th-century farmhouse on the Highgrove Estate in Gloucestershire – six fashion students are hard at work. Barnaby Horn, a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art, contemplates the crown of an unusually tall and verdant hat he is making from sinamay, a material derived from the dried stems of the abaca tree and inspired by the Highgrove gardens. “I think hats are a really useful anchor for more complex stories,” she says of the design, where she tried to “capture the sense of matter changing,” such as walking through the various gardens of the estate. “If the novel is a collection of fashion, I like to see the hat as a poem or a haiku. It says an almost impossible amount in a very small thing.”
When it comes to the student experience, the learning and accommodation at Highgrove, the country estate of King Charles III, has to be among the best. Now in the third part of the eight-month program, Chanel, The King’s Foundation and Chanel-owned Parisian hat maker Maison Michel have selected students at Le19M to learn hat making at atelier level as part of their training. the new Métiers d’Art Fellowship. It joins the existing Chanel Métiers d’Art Fellowship for embroidery students launched in 2023.
Fashion students with diverse training and experience in fashion, textiles and costume design also spend time at Maison Michel in Paris. Since 2021, the hacker has been housed in Le19M, a four-story Rudy Ricciotti-designed building designed by Chanel to bring the 12 specialty houses acquired by the brand under one roof. Highgrove is another piece of the puzzle that reinforces Chanel’s commitment to boat safety. “We are honored to be invited by the King’s Foundation to create this wonderful international initiative at Highgrove,” says Bruno Pavlovsky, Chairman of the Chanel Fashion Group and Le19M. “It underscores Chanel’s strong commitment to finding and training the next generation of artisans and passing on the knowledge and skills of this unique expertise.”
The skills of these young hatters include blocking, a technique in which the material of the hat is shaped onto a block of wood (Maison Michel has an impressive archive of the oddest shapes, all hand-carved); felt shaping; dyeing; manufacture of feathers and flowers; and sewn straw skills. It’s an offering that’s rare, if not impossible, to find at other educational institutions in the UK – a shame for a nation known for its love of hats that once had a thriving hat industry. (At the beginning of the 20th century, according to the Heritage Crafts Association, there were reportedly 11,000 hats in London alone.)
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“Milling technology is not taught to a high level,” says Daniel McAuliffe, director of education at The King’s Foundation. Although short courses, BTEC courses and fashion specializations are available for BAs in fashion design, most students looking to develop their skills have to rely on private tuition with fashion manufacturers or work placements in studios. “But they can’t achieve the same skills that we teach here,” McAuliffe adds. The course includes accommodation, subsistence, materials and tools; classes are taught by couture fashion makers such as Sarah Cant, a Stephen Jones alumna.
Not all candidates had made hats before, but each of the six applicants showed a passion for mastering the craft. “It was important for Maison Michel to meet a young generation that wanted to go in this direction,” says Priscilla Royer, artistic director of Maison Michel, who was on the interview panel. “We specifically took the best six for us to maintain hat manufacturing in the future. Those who didn’t necessarily have technical abilities, but the desire to work in this field.”
Student Niall White, 24, currently working on a three-tiered hat (his hat interest was piqued by the stark designs worn at the Folies Bergère in Paris), impressed the panel with his enthusiasm and dedication. Cornwall along with a degree in textile design at Falmouth University. Jessica Turley, 22, a first-class textile design graduate from Edinburgh College of Art, had never made a hat before, but the traditional craft is gaining momentum. “When I read that they were open to taking on someone so new to hatmaking and fully training them, I was so excited,” she says. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s amazing to come out of this as a creator.”
When I visited in November, the students got their hands on sewn straws – a technique where a straw hat is made by sewing lengths of braided straw together in a spiral from the buttons to the edges. It is a skill that Maison Michel is famous for and was once widely practiced in Britain. Milliner Lucy Barlow leads the class; Veronica Main, author of the definitive straw braiding book, recently taught a workshop.
For Emily Hurst, 22, this is a dream come true. A graduate of costume design and construction from Nottingham Trent University, she had already taught herself to plait straws using Main’s book. The cowboy hat he is currently working on contains 34 meters of straw, which he completed in three days. “Straw weaving is something I’ve really found a love for, and it’s on the (Heritage Crafts) red list, which means it’s a very endangered craft,” she says. “I’m very passionate about bringing back the technologies that we’re losing and seeing how they can be brought into this modern environment.”
“We didn’t think there was anyone like Emily in this country,” says McAuliffe. “He’s kind of a child prodigy.” Royer adds, “Emily didn’t just comb her own straw, she even figured out how to grow her own straw. It’s a very mature approach for his age and it’s totally a luxury world.
When students raise their hats to pose with them in Highgrove Gardens, they take the future of hats with them. One of them goes on to train at Maison Michel in Paris or a hat maker in London, but by the end of the course they are all among the most educated young hat makers in the country with old skills. which they can in turn pass on, benefiting the fashion industry for generations to come. In these hands, hat making can reach new heights.
kings-foundation.org