VISITING MELBOURNE
clients with their hat problems. William: “When people take good care of their hats, they last a lifetime. Nowadays we have special material to put behind the sweatband when you want to adjust the size of a hat, but traditionally people used to do this with folded-up newspaper. When we get hats in for repairs, we quite often find really old newspapers inside them.”
For more information, see
www.cityhatters.com.au
The Eternal Headonist
When Annabel Allen finished her millinery studies, she soon
discovered how difficult it can be for new milliners to market their new brand.
Having worked for a large retail organisation she decided to use her skills to promote the cause of hats, as she explained to us. “The reason I started learning how to make hats was because I couldn’t find what I liked in the market. I felt there must be a gap in the market for a retailer specialising in accessible contemporary millinery, who was willing to sell designs from new designers. So in 2014, I started my own online shop with a focus on
november 2017 | 65
Australian milliners and fashion-forward contemporary design, but also providing a platform for milliners to promote their brands and create a wider awareness for their work.” To guide designers in producing work that will sell well to her customers, Annabel gives them a rundown ahead of each season on her demographic customer base, what is selling well, and how customers are responding to their work. “I also provide trend predictions for next season, but the advice I give is not too specific, as I don’t want to direct the designers too much - after all, we chose them because of their unique creativity. Finding new designers is not too difficult as we receive a huge amount of requests to stock products in the store. When I receive requests, first of all, I look at the designer’s style to assess whether it will sell to our target market in Australia, and whether it is unique and not crossing over with what we already have. I try to make sure that we curate a wide range of complementary styles as we prefer to avoid too much of an overlap. I always encourage new milliners to develop their own millinery voice, rather than to follow what’s already out there.” For this Spring season, The Eternal Headonist has taken on eight new milliners. Some of them are from overseas and some from Australia. As there is a wealth of talented milliners in Australia, Annabel makes it her priority to stock those brands. “But if there’s an overseas designer who has an aesthetic which I feel really works well in Australia, then we will bring these
designers in. So this season, we’re stocking hats from Sophie Beale and Harvy Santos from the UK. Also, we have an Argentinian milliner called Florencia Tellado who’s got a very avant-garde style, and five new Australian brands.”
Melbourne shop The Eternal Headonist started out as an online store and has now been located for a year in ‘George’s’, the historic building of one of Melbourne’s former high-end department stores. George’s used to be the home of designer fashion in the city, known for its incredible merchandising and customer service and for this reason Annabel felt it would be a good place to experiment with a contemporary hat boutique with these values. “We focus on racewear but we do a bit of everything really, and have started doing some bridal pieces as well. We tend to avoid made-to-measure hats, if people want to have something made to order, they can go directly to the milliners themselves. Online we mostly sell headbands and headpieces. People don’t tend to buy regular hats so much online, at least not from us, but headpieces are a safer online purchase. We also have a virtual fitting room on our website where you can upload your own photo and try the headpieces on. I think this really helps people feel more comfortable when buying a creation online.”
For more information, see
www.theeternalheadonist.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
