Covid Country

 Hats in the time of covid have gotten their fair share of empathy in the world of milliners.  Those of us who make hats as a commercial venture calmly wait for the next wave of positivity whilst we while away our time in creative refurbishing.  We teach, we read, we work in our studios, and we write about the experience. At any moment the world will open once again, and albeit changed, it will be a world where people will once again go to weddings, garden parties, and races and yes, they will need hats.  Fanciful hats, to celebrate the opening of the cage door, with color, and plumage that will decry this period we patiently wait out.  This time of covid. 

Hats are not the enemy, and the creative process has always been medicinal to all who drink at that fountain.  Whether your art is cerebral, or physical, walking it through the creative process has always been a panacea.  We use our art to measure our ability to cope, our perception of any given circumstance, and our worldview. We use our art to facilitate, to loosen up the knots in our network, to calibrate our own endurance.  In this world, imagination knows no boundaries, but for the four walls that encircle and protect us from the dreaded virus. The universe is ours, and from household to household, bits, and pieces of that universe abound.  The internet has become the resource tool of the world if you can access broadband. Our libraries and museums have broadened their pathways to acquiring knowledge and allowing access to their treasures.  We as a society have landed on our feet sitting before a screen that fills with any image you require. Well, almost any.

Shaping a hat collection is a calming process.  My way is to look at the environment and see what inspires at first and second glance.  What nature provides is a wealth of ideas in line and form, and it leaves the rest up to  translate.  Materials at hand dictate to a certain extent, because of availability.  Our normal routes of distribution have altered considerably and Amazon seems to have encroached even upon our world of millinery for the gathering and hunting usually employed in the making of a hat collection.  Some purveyors of materials allow limited access, or have slowly folded their tents and left the marketplace.  Indomitable is the catchword that will help us all stand at our cutting tables and create.  Searching out the ingredients we need, want, crave has become so much a part of the process even online, that sourcing is a sport for some. But then, it always has been.

Small joys of delving into a forgotten box of whatnot on a shelf, or  walking under the spreading leaves of a tree in a park or forest gives back more creative productivity than some would think.  The open and shut of covid detention is just that: opening up to many possibilities while being shut down, or in.

My advice is the same for now, then, or whenever: keep it rolling. Read a book, sketch some ideas, drape some projects.  Play with the elements at hand and slowly spread your wings as isolation lifts, and we're back on a semblance of a normal road, open to new possibilities, and happy to have discovered new bits of our own creativity.  Not under a microscope, but right on your work table.  Art will get us to the next phase.

Unframed on Ellis Island: The Hard Hat Tour

by Ellen Christine

She wore her best hat. Her very best hat. The journey across the sea to a new world and a new life in a new country merited that. Uncle Morris was waiting on the other side in New York City where she would begin, but the start of the adventure was all about her hat….

The symbolism of articles of clothing provides the basis for a reading of entire sweeps of the population. What we wear and why we wear it translates to a language understood by some but not all.  What do you bring to a new country when you’re leaving behind the only life you know? Do you bring the practical? Do you bring only the best you own?

Immigrants arriving on our shores first disembarked onto Ellis Island for their medical check-ups. Their status was not yet established but their sense of wonder and trepidation certainly began there. Their possessions would have told that history and would probably have been few but important. The Statue of Liberty beckoned within their line of vision and a new American heritage was born through the cultural phenomenon arriving en masse.

Left behind as a ghostly reminder of millions who passed through these doors, the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital still stands as testimony to this history. Beyond the empty wards and corridors that once echoed with busy footsteps, the twists of vine and overgrowth of field grass bear the weight of memory of those many souls. Their presence resonated through all the years to follow. 

Befitting a building that stands on a spit of land next to the Statue of Liberty, a French graffiti artist known as JR installed his contribution to the work begun by others of his countrymen: Lafayette in our American Revolution and Bartholdi with his magnificent Lady Liberty. The lifting of that eternal flame now guards the spirits of the millions who came and who are now immortalized in JR’s photographic installation within the Hospital Complex. JR’s public art incorporates historical images of actual doctors, nurses, attendants and patients and are imbued with a sense of purpose and belonging. This exhibit, titled “Unframed Ellis Island,” opened to the public on October 1, 2014.

Walking through the wings with a sense of living history, one can turn a corner to see oversized photographs of arriving men, women, and children attached to a crumbling wall. Passing through a laundry room, images of those who walked here a century ago are affixed to windows that overlook the Statue of Liberty, calm and tranquil in the bay. Hospital staff locker rooms are enlivened with the images of smiling nurses who welcomed and nurtured here.  At every turn, with history reigning supreme, one feels the march of time and a sense of wonder, the awe and respect that should be paid to these souls who forged a new life. The purpose of this installation is perhaps to meld history, architecture, street art, and the inevitable encroachment of time. To me in my hard hat, it was a moment captured in time, a window into both the past and into the present.  

Listen closely to the whispers and the chatter of your fellow exhibit-viewers. In an inspiring moment, view the Statue of Liberty as our ancestors, our friends and our new citizens would have seen it--in their best hats. And carrying with them their best hopes and dreams neatly tied in a bundle.

Reference book: The Ghosts of Ellis Island.  A project by JR.  Published by Damiani 2015

Article photographs by Ellen Colon-Lugo

Link to tour: https://www.saveellisisland.org/about-us/blog/item/45-unframed—ellis-island.html

HAT AS OBJECT AND EXPERIENCE

WHAT DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES AND HEAR THE WORD "HAT"?

The argument for object as art has been made through the ages: Decartes, Hussserl, Hegel, Heidegger ruminated and philosophized about the nature of art and it's "thingly" character. What makes an art object? Art theory will always touch upon form, context and the nature of an object, but it is left to the beholder and the artist to define what art is. A hat is an object, either made as a protective or a decorative thing. Wearable, and by definition, an object. But elevate its character to a more creative level and it can be art.

Hats lend an element to the wearer and depend upon personality, personal style, the fashion of the hat, the world view of the wearer. In the past, hats denoted not just style but status. They were and still are a uniform depending upon definition. Geography mandates the shape, the form and the material. A hairdo limits or includes. In the 1930 photograph taken by Margaret Bourke-White, not a head was seen without a hat.


This was NY, in the Garment District and was taken for an article in Fortune Magazine entitled "Cloak and Suit". Cloak and suit is a good place to start. A hat protects the wearer from the elements, and suits the framework that the face provides. Or it should. It should flatter and excite. It should speak volumes about the person, and live not just in the moment, but carry an element of timelessness .

In Lussac-les-Chateaux, in Central France, there are 15,000 year old rock drawings depicting people with hats on their heads.

Hats are part of the universal language of costume. Who, what, where becomes more easily translated with something as simple as the right hat.

Historically, we owe a debt of gratitude to St. Clement somewhere around 750 AD-818 AD. He gingerly placed a piece of carded wool into his shoe and lo and behold, felt was made! Hatmakers everywhere could now use that spontaneous discovery to fashion hats to protect the head. Jump 1000 years ahead to a burgeoning industry in Europe. We, the people, as a colony of Great Britain became both very important, and very disruptive all because of a hat. One could almost say that the American Revolution happened because of a hat. The beaver population of Europe was almost extinct, but we had the in over here. Beaver skins were the first great American Trade commodity.
We supplied Britain with pelts for their hat industry. From 1700-1770 21 million hats made from beaver pelts were made in Britain and shipped throughout Europe. And so, to protect this very precious cargo, the Hat Act of 1732 was passed in Parliament. Limiting the number of workers, apprentices and slaves in the colonies employed in our own hat industry, this Act was the first rumble of discontent within the American colonies. We couldn't make our own hats. Imagine how that went down.

Hats and wars have always gone hand in hand. The Revolutionary War may have happened because of a hat. And the Civil War helped create what is now widely known as the western hat. After the war, as displaced soldiers found their way across these vast United States, appetites whetted for adventure and new horizons, they took with them the remnants of their uniforms. Many a farmer wore basic shaped felts on their heads, the classic floppy style we all know and love today. Mr. Stetson lent a hand and created his own shape, loved it so much that he founded a hat empire because of it.

Military styles always cropped up in female fashion. The hat was the final accessory to mimic shapes seen in uniforms throughout WWI and II. But after the war, when lifestyles changed, styles in fashion changed as well.

WWI brought us the suffragettes sometimes tricorne shapes. The undressing of the 1920's style with the new flapper mentality eliminated the architecture of the Edwardian era from fashion and substituted Art Deco. WWII brought the ode to the ration book, and with it, tiny perchy hats. Dubbed "Doll's Hats" by Elsa Schiaparelli in the late 1930's, while European fashion houses succumbed to the ravages of the limits imposed upon them by dint of war. The proportion worked with the reduced yardage now permitted in garments.

After WWII, when America returned home, home was often a shiny new car. Headroom in the 1950's vehicles was shorter than in vehicles of the 1930's and 40's. Fedoras became not as de rigeur. Costume had bowed to the new carefree vision of fashion, with more outdoor living and less indoor life becoming popular. Hairdos changed. For men, mimicking the pompadours of the early rockers and rebels was much more important that the color of a new fedora. And so, we have what we have. Do take history into account, and look around you. As America grew, New York City blossomed. We welcomed the felted shapes of the Jewish Community on the Lower East Side. We celebrated with our ethnic diversity as more and more cultures brought with them their culture, their joy, and their hats.

Where some of us wear hats for sports, some wear them for events, or protection, there are those who will always wear them for glamour, and a certain note of mystery they add to their wardrobe every day. Hats define, underline and help you to shine in a city that today finds itself often wearing a uniform of conformity. Since the first Kentucky Derby in 1875, fancy hats come out of their boxes . Since the Royal Wedding, fascinators have hit their stride. There is always a new reason to wear a hat to the hatlover. Hatters and milliners follow this simple recipe, put forth by Cheri Bibi, a milliner in Paris: Take some straw, felt, velvet, leather Add a healthy helping of grosgrain Trim with flowers, fruits or anything unusual you may have in hand Add a zest of know how Throw in a pinch of humor

And you have a hat!

The Best Clown of All

  

Thank you, Mr. Gelb for starting my New Year with the verismo gift that keeps on giving:  Roberto Alagna, Aleksandra Kurzak and George Gagnidze transforming the Met stage for Pagliacci. Just a few moments before the clown makes his appearance, Sir David McVicar  and his double-faceted production of Cavalleria Rusticana brings a 1900’s piazza in Italy to life, with Roberto showing us the selfish, vile and obsessive side of Turridu . The set is dark , the mood is dark and Roberto is spot on as the cad in question. The imaginative twist that McVicar gives these two often- paired short pieces is his use of the piazza where both take place. The Old World feel of Cav places us in a different time, a different mentality and practically an alternate universe with faithless love and death as the mirror image themes of both Cav and Pag. Roberto grounds us in the feeling of the place and George, as Alfio , the cuckolded husband, as his anchor.

Flip the coin and you’re in an ebullient world of color. The piazza  in Italy is now post WWII. Roberto makes his effervescent entrance atop a travelling troupe’s truck amid a blast of confetti, in blue. The darkness remains in essence, ghosted from the Cav set, as a psychological pall over the piazza.

George in the meantime has fleshed out the nature of the scene in an inappropriate wig and suit that scream tacky but so work. 

Moritz Junge did a raucous, ebullient set of costumes that reflected a post-war scrabble for travelling entertainers.

George, long known to Met audiences from ( among other roles) his brilliant Scarpia in Tosca must be foul.  He betrays Nedda in his jealousy and carries the bitter end of this two-act opera to fruition.

Roberto is at his acting and singing apex as Canio.  Adding to the electricity on stage is Aleksandra’s portrayal of Nedda. 

Nedda does it all: she passes the hat (literally), she performs in pantomime and carves out the ingénue with lively pacing. Aleks grasps the nuance behind the character and gives us an imaginative interpretation of this Jill of all trades.

Roberto as Canio is something we’ve been waiting for since the interruptus two years ago when he was pulled out of the role and saved the Met’s production of Manon Lescaut. His poignant delivery of one of the most famous arias in opera melts the soul and hammers the heart.  The list is very long of all the iconic arias that Roberto has gifted us with and treasured by the entire lyric world. Vesti la Giubba strikes home, with a fervor only Roberto can grant.

For those of us not so hip on lyric terminology but immersed in the operatic for the intensity that comes with a mammoth stage, costumes that excite, voices that prolong the experience long after the last note dwindles on the airwaves and music that echoes through the ages, Pagliacci per Roberto et Cie. is a must see.  Bravo, Mr. Gelb, Sir David, Roberto, Aleks, and George along with the euphonics of the Met orchestra and the ever-present talent of the chorus. Long may this clown live in our memories.

Authors/composers:

Cavalleria Rusticana, Pietro Mascagni

Pagliacci, Ruggiero Leoncavallo

Conductor,  Nicola Luisotti

Don't Wear the Turkey

The post-Thanksgiving stupor, plus the vast expanse of a long weekend, may make you feel like shopping. The mall rats will be trolling this weekend, off to the big box stores for bargains, to buy things so important they'll be forgotten or broken by next year. Ah, the joys of the holidays in the States.

Think, instead, of the long-term, the investment piece....that gift that brings joy now, and for years to come. An investment piece doesn't have to be come in a little blue box (forgive me, Tiffany's). An investment piece is something that adds value to your life in some way, whether it be a visual documentation of a friendship, or a new hat for that coat you still love. An investment piece should be a timeless thing, based on the long term good feeling it will bring year after year. Stocks and bonds, real estate, jewelry, all familiar faces on the landscape of investment. Translate the word into real meaning, and bring something new to the table. Gift someone a trip to a good tailor, to have a special something made to order. Give a cancer patient a trip to a local milliner, to get a new hat designed just for them. Do a field trip with your best friend's kids, and record it as a gift for the parents.

Use your imagination, and the stars are the limit. The thanks and the joy resulting will be without definition, and definitely an investment.

Image courtesy of: www.7gadgets.com

St. Catherine's Day

...or week, as we do things here in the States.

In Paris, on Nov. 26th, all of the single unmarried "hands" working in the fashion houses of Paris don a green and yellow hat in honor of St. Catherine, and to win for themselves, their employers, and their future. What they win is unsure, but this has been a tradition amongst the seamstresses, milliners, tailors and needleworkers of France for decades. The idea is to make a superlative, hysterical, over- the- top- hat, and go for it. There were parades in the past, through the streets of Paris. Now, perhaps, just the fashion show, the hats, and a bow will suffice.

If you're in Paris for the Fete, email me and let me know what's happening.

In New York City, The Milliners Guild, a scant two years old, is holding their annual St. Catherine's Day tomorrow. By meeting at the Millinery District Synagogue, in the Garment District, and parading up Fifth Avenue to the party at Haven, they hope to stimulate hat wearing in general, and camaraderie in the industry, in particular.

The idea of donning a specialty piece and parading through the streets is often met with interest, even in New York. Last year, the New York Times covered the event with splashy photography as the milliners et al proceeded through Bryant Park, up to Rockefeller Center, and around St. Pat's.

This is the opportunity of the year to wear whatever outrageous gear you have, hat-wise, and have fun. Send in the hats!

This year, there will be a contest for the best hat, non-milliners only, thank you. Once at Haven, a complimentary Champagne Hour will be from 6-7, with Veuve Cliquot (thank you, Moet Hennessey USA!) and hors d'oeuvres. The latest collections from the milliner members will be on display, for pert posing and purchasing.

Haven itself is a warm and inviting space, reminiscent of a gentlemen's club from the victorian era, with a mezzanine and a choice seating area for light repast.

Puerto Rico Gets to Work

Puerto Rico Gets to Work

Most of you know about the island, and the hurricane, and the aftermath.  Perhaps you don't realize that this is a static situation, with very slow growth and progress thanks to a few generalities.  Not necessary to get into the politics of the situation on the island and in the hallways of the US Senate, but only with an ongoing effort from all of us "off-island" will there be progress and change.

Jump back a few decades, to the 19th Century actually, to discover the origins of the US relationship with Puerto Rico. Follow the thread to the post-WWI era, through the 1950's and up to today.  Bear in mind that the Jones Act impedes imports, and the US finds ways and means of latching onto contracts that produce income for anyone and everyone except the people of Puerto Rico.

Millions of us  from famous names to high school students feel the hardship and not just because we all have relatives in Puerto Rico who are living through this nightmare. The Puerto Rican people are as they say, resilient, but the island needs all the help we can give it.

Think of Puerto Rican's as your next door neighbors and find a way to help.

My Puerto Rican side lives in daily frustration knowing that the island needs help and it isn't arriving fast enough.  And it just isn't enough. Some, not all, politicians in the US are making life even more difficult for this little jewel of an island.  Reading online will help educate, as to the status quo, so it's not up to me to do that.

Our job at hand is to help keep Puerto Rico within eye sight. Ellen Christine Couture is designing a capsule collection of hats , headgear and caps to help introduce products that might work for a gift, or just to help keep the topic alive in your circle.

For the first two items in the collection we've hand-painted a stylized Puerto Rican flag onto cotton canvas, and used it as an applique...sold as a patch that you can sew on yourself, or  pre-sewn on our kepi. Not a baseball cap, a kepi is a throwback to the French Legionnaires, and the American Civil War military issue headgear.  A bit more stylish that the normal baseball cap. The kepi is made in NYC, in cotton, with fabric donated by James Thompson & Co. an American fabric company established in 1860, and very appropriate for this style cap.
Our production was a limited edition, executed by our guy, Felix, in Long Island City. No more can be produced, as limited runs interrupt the flow in the factory.

Watch for our next style, and please help Puerto Rico.
Our funds from the sale of these work hats go to: ConPRmetidos and Centros Sor Isolina Ferre, both non-profit organizations that are easily researched on the internet.

It's just one of the ways we're helping.  Build a network within your community or join one of the agencies already reaching out.  It feels good, and good is what we're all about, right?

Just an aside about our picture: our lovely intern, Holly sits with two of our neighbors rescued from  Puerto Rico.




http://www.ellenchristinecouture.com/store/puerto-rico/