Philip Anthony Treacy is an Irish haute couture milliner, or hat designer, who has been mostly based in London for his career, and who was described by Vogue magazine as "perhaps the greatest living milliner". In 2000, Treacy became the first milliner in eighty years to be invited to exhibit at the Paris haute couture fashion shows. He has won British Accessory Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards five times, and has received public honours in both Britain and Ireland. His designs have been displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter.
Lilly Daché was a French-born American milliner and fashion merchandiser. She started her career in a small bonnet shop, advanced to being a sales lady at Macy's department store, and from there started her own hat business. She was at the peak of her business career in the 1930s and 1940s. Her contributions to millinery were well-known custom-designed fashion hats for wealthy women, celebrities, socialites, and movie stars. Her hats cost about ten times the average cost of a lady's hat. Her main hat business was in New York City with branches in Paris. Later in her career she expanded her fashion line to include dresses, perfume, and jewelry.
Rod Keenan is an American milliner and is the creator of a handcrafted men's headwear collection that is marketed under his label Rod Keenan New York.
A fascinator is a formal headpiece, a style of millinery. Since the 1990s, the term has referred to a type of formal headwear worn as an alternative to the hat; it is usually a large decorative design attached to a band or clip. In contrast to a hat, its function is purely ornamental: it covers very little of the head and offers little or no protection from the weather. An intermediate form, incorporating a more substantial base to resemble a hat, is sometimes called a hatinator.
Caroline Reboux was a Parisian milliner and French fashion designer. She opened her first boutique at 23 rue de la paix in Paris in 1865, which she continued to operate throughout her life. Reboux opened other shops in Paris and London starting in 1870. She trained other milliners who became famous in their own right, including American milliner Lilly Daché and French milliner Rose Valois. Reboux's most famous shop was located at 9 Avenue Matignon in Paris, which carried on operating after her death for almost three decades under the direction of Lucienne Rabaté known as "Mademoiselle Lucienne" the most famous parisian milliner at that time.
Prudence Millinery designs and makes couture hats for major designers all over the world.
Madame Anna Ben-Yusuf was a German milliner and teacher based in Boston and New York City. She wrote The Art of Millinery (1909), one of the first reference books on millinery technique. She was the mother of the portrait photographer Zaida Ben-Yusuf.
Stephen Jones OBE is a British milliner based in London, who is considered one of the most radical and important milliners of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He is also one of the most prolific, having created hats for the catwalk shows of many leading couturiers and fashion designers, such as John Galliano at Dior and Vivienne Westwood. His work is known for its inventiveness and high level of technical expertise. Jones co-curated the 2009 exhibition Hats: An Anthology for the Victoria and Albert Museum.
House of Flora is an established British fashion label and design house founded by designer Flora McLean.
Graham Smith is a milliner from Kent, England. Beginning his career at a time when hats were an everyday essential for fashionable women, he worked with leading couturiers in Paris and London, later establishing his own brand and also working with mainstream fashion brands such as Kangol.
Susie Schmitt Hanson was a milliner, dressmaker and entrepreneur from Minnesota. As the owner of one of Waconia's longest-running businesses, she remains a prominent figure in the history of that town.
Otto Lucas was a German-born, London-based milliner. Running a hugely successful hatmaking studio in London between the 1930s and the 1970s, his business supplied both major stores throughout Europe, the US and Australia and hats for private clients such as Greta Garbo and Wallis Simpson. His career was cut short when he was killed in a plane crash over Belgium in October 1971.
John Richardson Boyd MBE was a Scottish milliner based in London. Designing hats for over seventy-five years, Boyd was one of London's most respected milliners and is known for his creations for Diana, Princess of Wales and Anne, Princess Royal. Boyd was a milliner to three generations of Diana's family – Diana, her mother Frances Shand Kydd and grandmother Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy – and had remained at the centre of his craft adding another generation of royals with Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. Boyd had one of the longest millinery careers in the world whilst continuing to practise his art before his death in 2018. Boyd’s label continues with his protégé and senior milliner Sarah Marshall.
For the French general and diplomat, see Claude Carra Saint-Cyr
A mushroom hat is a millinery style in which the brim of the hat tilts downwards, resembling the shape of a mushroom. It is a style that first emerged in the 1870s and 1880s, when it was usually made of straw. It became fashionable again from around 1907 to the late 1920s; these versions featured a distinctly downturned brim although the size and shape of the crown varied according to prevailing fashions.
A bumper brim is a millinery feature in which the hat brim is tubular in design, making it a prominent feature of the hat. In order to achieve this effect, the brim may be rolled, stiffened or padded. A bumper brim can be added to a variety of hat designs, from small to large.
Sally Victor was a prominent American milliner from the late 1920s through the 1960s. Her designs were popular with Hollywood actresses such as Irene Dunne, Helen Hayes, and Merle Oberon, as well as First Ladies Mamie Eisenhower and Jacqueline Kennedy, and Queen Elizabeth II.
Velma Owusu-Bempah is a milliner, accessories designer and fashion instructor from Ghana. She is the Creative director of her self-named fashion brand, Velma's Millinery and Accessories, and the principal of Velma's Millinery Academy.
