Making Hats For John Galliano, Spring-Summer 2010. London, Part 5

Considering that Stephen Jones and John Galliano had an ongoing spectacular creative collaboration for the past 10 years, the fact that I will be a part of creative team for John Galliano Spring-Summer 2010 Collection wasn't really a secret to me. I knew that the most exciting if not outrageous hats would be done for John and could not wait to see every single little detail: sketches, fabric samples, work on the design. The fact that I was a part of this amazing process magically erased exhaustion and inspired me once again. I, probably, mentioned before that to me, each hat is the most powerful way to transform any look, make it unforgettable and unique. It is like an exclamation point at the end of the sentence that gives it power of emotion. And, so, when the inspiration behind the Collection was reviled, it became apparent that until this day I really did not know what the word "challenge" really meant.

The inspiration behind Galliano's Collection came from his trip to L.A. "I went around the old houses of Hollywood and imagined how stars like Tallulah Bankhead, Lillian Gish, and Mary Pickford lived." said John. It gave him a flawless idea for playing to his brilliant strengths in poetically glamorous chiffon; bias-cut little nothings; fragile, delightful plissé puff-shouldered blouses and bed jackets; and coats symbolically decorated with clusters of flowers made out of film gel...and, of course, hats! Not surprisingly, design of every hat for John's Collection was intrusted to Stephen. While the rest of the team was put in front of their tasks, I was having almost a heart attack: I was requested to create three samples of pattern using a macrame technique. No direction, no idea of what exactly was expected in terms of design.

This is one of the hats made by me. It was made out of red straw and decorated with black bids along the brim line.

Macrame!? Really!!? The last time I attempted to do macrame I was 10. I created absolutely horrific flower pot and proudly gave it to my Mom for her Birthday. Needless, to say, I was absolutely panic stricken: it was impossible to say "I have no idea how". Not when you work with Stephen for Galliano. You sit down and you do it. Period. While I was saying "good by" to my career as a milliner and having all sorts of crazy things going on in my head (including voice of Miranda Pristley "a million girls would kill for this job" and so on), I had to remind myself that before I will declare my complete incompetency when it comes to macrame, I had to, at list, give it my best. And so I did.

This hat was also done by me out of hand colored raffia.

Don't ask me how, but samples of macrame techniques were ready with in 8 hours and then brought to Paris for John to consider. He made his choice and the next step for me was to create a "mock up" hat so that John could see how the entire hat will look in person. Have to say that doing macrame is difficult enough, but when you have to macrame entire hat (something you never done before!) for no other than Gilliano, the pressure is really on. The mock up hat took me approximately 14 hours of non-stop work to create. It was the most ugliest hat I have ever seen in my life, it was terrible, awful, disgusting ...and John absolutely loved it! :-) He said that he loved the idea of "brims disappearing into the thin air".

Once again, this another hat I worked on - made out of thin ropes.

By the time the mock-up hat was done, my back felt as if it was stuffed with bricks and I was anxious to learn how many macrame hats I would have to make for Galliano Collection. Sometime during this fever, I had to go to the hospital because the back pain became almost unbearable. God bless British doctors! :-) As the result of this hospital visit I came up with an idea of creating special boards for doing brims in macrame - it did help tremendously to relief tension in the back and shoulders during the work. John decided that he needs three macrame hats for his Collection. The materials chosen were raffia, rope and straw. Macrameing hat out of thin ropes was almost the easiest part. But when it came to raffia and straw - it was nearly impossible. Both raffia and straw did not want to cooperate, would not lock into secure knots and could not care less about Galliano, me or the hats...

In addition, one of the hats had to be decorated with black bids which slowed down the process. Miraculously, all three macrame hats were finished on time and to the highest satisfaction of Stephen and John. You see all three hats on the pictures above looking so effortlessly and so chic... :-) Despite all the pain, doubt and panic - it was an incredible experience.

 Not only the show by itself was beyond amazing, but this smoke filled bubbles on the runway simply took my breath away.:-) This bubbles were synonymous to the idea of creative process: hours and hours of intense work to create a single moment of glorious beauty...