My latest costume commission has been an interesting one, an Edwardian traveling costume- hat & coat- for a production at The Little Black Box Theater, here in Bristol. Set on the Titanic the night she sinks this is a rather moving piece of theater & I am making the leads costumes, starting with the aforementioned enormous hat. . . more to come on the dress later.
I’ve had to make the hat in the last 24 hours to be ready for a photo shoot for publicity stills- welcome to the chaos of independent Theater! however; I am exceedingly pleased with the results. The character isn’t the richest, probably lower middle class, & as such would have dressed for the voyage but not extravagantly. The hat style is a couple years out of date, but looks spruced up for the occasion. Her husband has just died which is why it is so black- I’d probably have put more elements of cream in there otherwise.
Ideas for the shape, decoration & construction of the hat came from all over- books I have at home, a couple borrowed from the theater, & of course Google.
Enjoy!
I also found this really interesting article from The American Duchess in the research too http://americanduchess.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/v73-brief-history-of-feathers-on-hats.html
Happy Stitching!