TRAVELS WITH MY HAT
Serena Lindeman
Serena Lindeman started her business in Melbourne in 1998,
having first worked and lived for a number of years in London.
“Like a lot of Australians, I went to England in the early ‘90s. I wanted to go for one year but was eventually away for seven. During that period, I changed my career. I did some millinery courses at the London College of Fashion and ended up working for Edwina Ibbotson for a couple of years. She turned me from a good enough milliner into a much better one.”
Education Serena’s studio in Melbourne is located in the same building as Louise Macdonald’s. Her workroom, where she works on her yearly collections and made-to-order hats, is a treasure trove packed with all kind of creations, books and materials. “I have been in this building since 1999. Some clients come to visit me here, others buy online from my website. I prefer to meet clients personally and talk with them about their order. In recent years my focus has changed, as I now spend most of my time teaching. I still work on my collections and I have a couple of fashion designers that I’m still working for but in some ways it has become more important for me to be a good teacher than to be a really competitive milliner. Actually I’m concentrating on being the best teacher I can be, as I want to pass all my knowledge on to the next generation. As I teach in different locations, I have a big suitcase filled with all my favourite tools and materials. Wherever I go for teaching, I take it with me. I sometimes feel like a turtle travelling around with this bag.” In addition to teaching courses at official
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institutes, Serena also offers workshops in her studio. ”Nowadays a lot of people go to conventions to learn new techniques. The difference between conventions and regular classes is that the classes help you to build a very solid base whereas at
conventions, you get all these exciting new ideas. So if you combine the two, you have the best of both worlds.”
For more information, see
www.serenalindeman.com.au
Kangan Institute
The Kangan Institute offers part- time courses in millinery that are nationally accredited in Australia.
Their three-year course enables students to study the Certificate IV level in millinery, the highest official level available in the country. The person in charge of the millinery department at the Richmond Campus since 2003 is milliner Serena Lindeman. On Monday evenings she teaches a group of eight first-year students.
“The first technique the students have learnt this year is how to block a felt hat, and how to assemble and trim their blocked hat. We’re quite old school when it comes to the first year of their education, so we do all the traditional techniques using traditional materials. The second hat they have made is a parasisal and the next thing they’ll make - after they’ve finished the flat pattern hats we’re working on at the moment - is a flat blocked sinamay piece. For each different type of hat, they will learn two or three trimming techniques. They don’t have to use all of these for the hat they’re working on, but it gives them the opportunity to add any kind of trim they like to their hats. We’re here to make hats. So every class we have, we work on practical millinery techniques. The theory that goes with it is learned at home or in group discussions.” The basic course takes three years. By the time the students get to their third year, they start working on professional displays and are offered subjects that are geared to running their own business and building their own collections. The course is aimed at developing professional milliners or workroom assistants who will fit well in a millinery workroom. “We encourage the students to do work- experiences with milliners. Besides that,
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