Karen Henriksen
‘Windswept Sculpted Headscarf’
Leather sculpted headscarf, created as part of my MA graduating collection at the Royal College of Art, 2003.
Not for sale.
“Traditional and utilitarian headwear, alongside current urban trends, provided the inspiration for my 2003 MA collection at the Royal College of Art, featuring ‘windswept’ headscarves, caps, hoodies and sou’westers on a grand scale. I soon realised that this concept could be applied on a more accessible and practical level, and so began to experiment with asymmetric pattern-cutting. The result was my re-imagining of a traditional English icon, the flat cap, which later evolved into the Windswept Collection, a small range of soft caps and hats for men and women. Over the years since then, I have continued to explore classic hat styles, constantly de-constructing, up-dating and re-imagining, in order to create new versions of the flat cap, trilby, baseball cap etc. ”
Materials and Techniques
Leather on buckram base, hand-blocked and sculpted, wired edge and constructed with millinery seams. Lined with faux suede.
Millinery Heritage
“Heritage continues to be important to my collections of men’s and women’s hats. I aim to capture the perfect balance between elegance, innovation and practicality, and use British heritage fabrics as much as possible.
Architecture and interior decoration have long been a source of inspiration for my hat designs. Now my new work, creating art pieces and lighting for interiors, draws on my millinery heritage.”
About Karen Henriksen
Karen Henriksen is a milliner, artist and designer-maker. Her hat designs aim to strike a balance between elegance, innovation and practicality, whilst her sculptural lightshades and wall pieces draw on her millinery and fashion background. She works from her studio at Cockpit Bloomsbury in the heart of London, where she established her practice in 2005. For Karen, inspiration can come from anywhere, finding beauty and elegance in the everyday. Her work incorporates story-telling, and a sense of ‘taking a line for a walk’ - whether through the intricate and asymmetric pattern-cutting of a hat, the undulating curves of a lightshade, or the not-quite repetition and spiralling abstraction in her new wall pieces.