Rachel Trevor-Morgan | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Occupation | Milliner |
| Notable credit | Royal Warrant to Queen Elizabeth II from 2014 until the death of Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022. |
Rachel Trevor-Morgan is a British milliner best known for the hats she created for the Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2014, she was granted a Royal Warrant by the Queen.
The hat designer Rachel Trevor-Morgan was born in Stourbridge, West Midlands. Her father was a vicar and, as a child, she loved seeing her mother wear hats to church. [1] She was a pupil at The Alice Ottley School in Worcester and, aged 19, moved to London intent on learning how to be a milliner. [2]
She wrote to British milliner Graham Smith – hatmaker to Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins and Princess Diana among others – asking if she could see how he worked. He interviewed Trevor-Morgan and offered her an apprenticeship. [1] She learned the trade for three years, as one of a workroom of 14 women in his studio near Oxford Street, then working for another royal hat designer Philip Somerville between 1988 and 1990. Trevor-Morgan has said of her training with two of London's most celebrated milliners that Graham Smith taught her how to get the hat right and Philip Somerville taught her about "people relations". [1] She has also described Smith as remaining her "mentor" when she needs advice. [1]
Trevor-Morgan set up in business in 1990, initially selling her designs in the market at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church. [1] Soon she was supplying Fortnum & Mason; Harrods and Selfridges followed and, in 1992, her business moved to a 17th-century studio in the prestige location of St James's. [1] By 1998, her reputation had grown to the extent that a feature in The Times included her in a list of go-to milliners in London, alongside much more established names such as Frederick Fox and Stephen Jones. [3]
Trevor-Morgan began making hats for the Queen in 2006 – initially she was invited to create six sketches for review and then some designs were made. The first of her models was worn by the Queen at her 80th birthday church service at St Paul's Cathedral. [1] The Queen then chose another of the designer's hats – a beige shot silk model – for her birthday lunch at the Mansion House – inspiring a Times journalist to note that Trevor-Morgan had now become "a new recruit to a tight little band of royal headwear designers". [4]
From 2006, she had been one of the Queen's preferred milliners, creating some 60 hats (averaging ten a year) up to 2012. [5] [6] In 2014, Trevor-Morgan was awarded a Royal Warrant. [1]
Trevor-Morgan worked closely with the Queen's design team, including fashion designer Stewart Parvin and the Queen's senior dresser and assistant Angela Kelly. [1] More recently, Trevor-Morgan hats have also been worn by other members of the British Royal Family, including Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. [7] [8]
Trevor-Morgan still supplies London stores such as Fortnum & Mason as well as creating hats for private clients. All designs are bespoke, with fabric and straw dyed in the St James's studio. Trevor-Morgan has said she prepares her dyes in a saucepan, cooking them up to achieve exactly the right shade. [1]
In 2014, she was commissioned to add miniature hats to Lego figures in front of a replica of Buckingham Palace at Legoland in Windsor in the run up to Royal Ascot. [9]
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.
Sir Norman Bishop Hartnell was a leading British fashion designer, best known for his work for the ladies of the royal family. Hartnell gained the Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth in 1940, and Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth II in 1957. Princess Beatrice also wore a dress designed for Queen Elizabeth II by Hartnell for her wedding in 2020.
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.
Simone Mirman (1912–2008) was a Paris-born milliner based in London, chiefly known for her designs for the British royal family.
David Shilling is an English milliner and fashion designer. He designs hats and clothing displayed on Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot, and has been called "The Hatman” and "the Mad Hatter.”
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.
Frederick Fox LVO was an Australian-born British milliner who designed hats for Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the British Royal Family.
A picture hat or Gainsborough hat is an elaborate woman's hat with a wide brim. It has been suggested that the name may be derived from the way the broad brim frames the face to create a "picture".
Charles Southey Creed was a British fashion designer. Born into the longstanding tailoring house of Henry Creed & Company in Paris, he launched his eponymous label in London in 1946. The first elected member of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, he had success in both Britain and the United States.
Philip Douglas Frank Somerville was an English milliner – partly trained in Auckland – who had a salon in London. He is widely known for hats worn by the Queen – from whom he held a Royal Warrant – and Diana, Princess of Wales. He also created headgear worn by two James Bond villainesses.
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.
Aage Thaarup (1906–1987) was a Danish-born milliner who ran a celebrated hatmaking business in London between the 1930s and 1970s.
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.
A draped turban or turban hat is a millinery design in which fabric is draped to create headwear closely moulded to the head. Sometimes it may be stiffened or padded, although simpler versions may just comprise wound fabric that is knotted or stitched. It may include a peak, feather or other details to add height. It generally covers most or all of the hair.
A cartwheel hat is a hat with a wide-brimmed circular or saucer-shaped design. It may be made in a variety of materials, including straw or felt and usually has a low crown. It may be similar to the picture hat and halo-brimmed hat in shape. Typically, it is worn at an angle to show off the curve of the brim, rather than being worn at the back of the head in the manner of a halo hat.
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.
Reed Crawford (1924-2006) was a British milliner of the 1950s and 1960s. He produced a series of high-fashion designs that matched the Swinging London mood of the 1960s, including helmet-style cloche hats and designs in unusual material combinations, such as plastic and fur. He became especially associated with couture, working with the designer John Cavanagh from 1959 and joining the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers as an associate member from 1961.
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.