Exploring Silk Flowers for Occasion Hats

Approaching the spring season here in Bowral reminds me how much inspiration I take from nature. I always enjoy decorating hats with millinery flowers, so full of colour, variation and life. This has been the case with me since I began making hats in Prague, and it continue to this day. Of course I am also always learning and taking new inspiration from others.

I recently encountered the beautiful flowers of Japanese creator Sayoko Yasuda while exploring online. I immediately appreciated the quality of her work, the delicate precision, and the obvious care in her creations. Seeing this has motivated me to explore my own flower technique.

I find that flowers work particularly well in my handcrafted Occasion Hats. They add a beautiful element that is exquisite and feminine. Just as flowers are each different, each flower design for my hats is also different. At the same time, the flower must elevate the hat in my design – they must complement.

Returning to my studio, the first step in making flowers is choosing right material. Before I found Sayoko Yasuda, I constructed the flowers for my hats from cotton and not silk. As you can see from this photo of a lovely blue hat I made for a customer in Canberra, cotton material can create beautiful flowers.

But I always want to experiment and grow my designs, and so I have started making hats with flowers from silk.

Silk flowers are so beautiful as the material is light and delicate, and reflects light much more than cotton, which tends to have a more matte finish. The process is intensive and proceeds through steps like stiffening the material, colouring the leaves with dye, shaping the leaves using heat and specialised millinery techniques, and then delicately joining the leaves by hand. It is a long process, but the results are truly stunning, I think you will agree.

An example of this new silk flower can be seen in the gorgeous piece in the photo from my studio and here.

This photo is of my sinamay rose fascinator in frost lavender.

The compact shape of the hat is offset by the large sculptural rose and green leaves. Timeless beauty and sure to catch everyone's eyes. I love make it, and I hope you will love it too!