Autumn 2022
The September Issue…
By Gráinne Maher
It’s September again, arguably the height of the fashion calendar. New collections, new colours, new shapes, catwalk shows, digital look books, our senses are being bombarded with what’s hot and what’s not… Oh the pressure!!
But, Oh the thrill! I always get the intense feeling of a new start in September, designing ahead for the next 12 months, separating the imminent winter hat styles from the spring summer pieces which will be upon us again in no time, planning is everything. For the most part, I design in-season as a response to what my clients are buying in the shops in the present, though I have been balancing that for the past few years with my collaborative work with womenswear designer Kevan Jon in Halifax, whereby I design and make hats for his look books, which are created seasons in advance.
In September though, there’s usually a sense for me that it’s possible to take a short breather, reconfigure and reboot as the major wedding hat season and race day hat seasons are for the most part calming down. We have winter weddings too naturally, but certainly where I am based in Northern Ireland, it’s never quite as manic as spring/summertime. On reflection regards what to write about for this milliner’s quarterly article it occurred to me how my business model has evolved over the years, and I wonder how my friends in and beyond the Guild have grown in their own ways over the years?
To hire or not to hire…?
At least this is my current experience as a solo designer/maker, a lone ranger, making bespoke one-offs and adding pieces to my hat hire collections as each year passes. I have found in the past 5/6 years that my previous approach of producing only made-to-order hats and selling stock samples was no longer going to work in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland (my main customer base), and that the demand for ‘hat hire’ was increasing. I supply other hat hire businesses too, which is a welcome added income. Understandably, the savvy stylish shopper, wants more and more these days to wear a fabulous headpiece without the full ‘cost’ of purchasing it. And by cost, I don’t just mean monetarily. Rightly, the sustainability argument also has come to the fore, meaning that for many clients it’s just not ethical to purchase something so expensive for a ‘one wear only’ occasion, irrespective of whether they can financially afford it or not.
The circular economy
There are many positive factors to consider, even though on the surface I had panicked at first when dabbling with hat hire. I thought to myself, “Will my revenue stream decrease? How can I make as much money from small hat hire fees, compared to high price couture one-offs?”. The great news is, there are plenty of naked heads out there!!!! And I am greatly encouraged by the larger number of people wishing to wear headwear as a wider fashion statement, and not just for ‘special occasions’. For example, there are zero signs of headbands and halos disappearing any time soon, and delightfully BIG hats are well and truly in vogue also!
I have noticed we are becoming a little bit obsessed with this circular solution to the luxury accessories/clothing industry. There are countless websites popping up offering designer garments for rent, and a few even I have found globally focusing only on hats. But just how sustainable and ‘green’ is this practice when it entails notching up air-miles, using postal services all of which crank up CO2 emissions etc? I guess to be a purely eco-friendly transaction, hat hire needs to be collected in person and/or delivered in person, ideally on foot, in an electric car or on a bicycle! Whilst that idea in the extreme is unlikely to be a prescribable business model, (I can’t make my clients drive a Tesla!), I do think it’s food for thought…
Pyramid of Desire
Even though one of the main ideas behind hat rental services is to offer a way to be more sustainable, it also serves as a way for customers to access designer hats that they couldn’t ordinarily afford, certainly a consideration for many going forward in the months and years ahead as the cost of living crisis looms. What in fact will the effect of that, if any, be on the luxury hat market?
There will no doubt always be those customers who can indeed afford the higher price points, and those who can’t. It’s for this reason that I visualised and started to create within my own business a ‘Pyramid of desire’…
It’s all about balance and variety in what you offer and how you offer it. At the top of the pyramid are the highest price hats, these are for the most part bespoke orders, tailored to an individual’s own outfit, exact colour matching etc. Further down the pyramid are the stock of collection pieces for that season, ready to wear, bought straight off the shelf. These can be a price range offering from low to high, but one of the main advantages to the milliner being it is an instant purchase with no extra time required for that particular transaction, these pieces were made prior and aren’t tweaked, time is money after all.
Then the final tier of the pyramid for me is the hat hire collection, which is no less important. This is now a large collection consisting of pieces from previous collections that never sold off the shelf, but also it is made up of ‘best sellers/hirers’ in a wide range of colours which will appeal to those that can’t/won’t justify spending a higher budget. I have found in fact that many of my best repeat customers who come regularly and hire pieces, fashion influencers included, make me a healthy profit. Once a stylish person has been photographed in a beautiful hat the ripple effect on social media is that you gain new followers and more importantly customers, who will engage with you in whichever level of the pyramid of desire, they desire! By hiring out the same piece numerous times, you may indeed find that one particular hat might actually make you more money in the long run! And that hat itself is reinvented with varying outfits, on varying hair colours, body shapes and skin tones and breathes life - in the words of our chairman Stephen Jones as ‘an exclamation mark’ - to numerous outfits, what a wonderful thought!!
So, in a sense the pyramid of desire of ‘need’ is superimposed with another pyramid of ‘price/affordability’, but it’s not that simple. I have found that this is the interesting part of being adaptable in your business model, seeking out the current zeitgeist and responding to it. There is no doubt in my mind that sustainable practices in commerce and design will continue to be of utmost importance to the customer, whichever type of millinery/hatmaking business you are in, it must feature in your planning. How wonderful it is to reflect on the slow craft of our chosen art form: millinery, and to recognise the environmentally sound practice of resourcefulness and longevity found in our materials and tools? How many of us are using wooden hat blocks passed down through the decades? and are many of you like me a hoarder of fabric and feathered gems, wasting absolutely NOTHING!!? We need not fear, for we are doing our part for the planet in reusing, recycling and repurposing.
Final word…
Let us pay homàge to Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away on 8th September 2022, undoubtedly one of the world’s main ambassadors of millinery perfection. During her reign, she wore a vast range of hat styles in every colour imaginable, a lady with a strong sense of style and grace. There will never be another quite like her. May she Rest in Peace.