THEATRICAL MILLINERY
In the workroom
write down in my notebook: it’s my bible. They might not want any red in it, or any blue, or it’s all beige or grey. They give you a big flavour of how the film or the play is going to be. I write all that down. For example, All is True is set in 1613 and not a day later. It’s about Shakespeare, about a particular time in his life. You start doing research: I always look at books and museum archives. I don’t go online as you can make big mistakes with that. Most of what you see there is repro.”
“Don’t forget: I’m not the designer. My brief is tight, I can’t go outside it, I’m locked in. But this is what I’m good
at, reproducing. That is really my forte.”
Today’s digital age is ruthless, she says, “as you can see every stitch”. Only after 1860 did the sewing machine come in. Hence anything before that time period she has to hand stitch because the
Photos: Piet de Meijer & Elly Stemerdink
high resolution cameras will pick it up. For theatre, on the other hand, what is important is that the work is very sturdy, because it goes on every night. “I did the big fedoras for The Phantom of the Opera. He throws his hat across the stage every night, so it’s like a rock. Every time they recast, I have to make new ones, because they are so battered up. Instead of wet buckram, I’m using Worbla (thermoplastic) nowadays. It’s used in props and it’s a wonderful material. In Cats I had to do a magician, who had to throw his hat in the air, and it was too wobbly. I used Worbla for it and it’s fantastic, hard as nails and light; Worbla was originally used in the shoe industry. The Australian milliner Carole Maher came here last year to tell me about her experience with thermoplastics, and that was very useful.” The variety of materials to work with now is unbelievable, says Jane. For instance, with Fosshape, a thermoplastic, you can put it under a felt so you don’t have to stiffen the felt too much. In this case, Fosshape proved better than buckram.
Jane also gets some great jobs from Ede & Ravenscroft, London’s oldest tailor and robe maker, who supply the House of
Lords. “A great big old judge had his wig remade and he had a sweet little black tricorn. He had a new wig made and he wanted a slightly bigger tricorn, so I did it with another bootlace on the top. I also did the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal of England. There are a lot of diplomats who are still wearing that English stuff. I get orders from all over the world – it’s fantastic, I make all sorts of things.
“I’m 77 now and I’m at a point where I get very interesting work, so no way I’m going to stop working. I can decide for myself how busy I want to be. And what’s also nice, I can start now writing a book about bicorns. I used to think I was going to write a book about straw hats, but it’s too big a subject. So focussing on this one thing, I started my research. I recently received a reference book. Instead of looking online, I can find all the costume collections in America in it. It’s from the American Costume Society and it helps me a lot with my research for the book. Before, my head was too full of work and employing people. I just can’t believe I’m doing this now!”
More information
www.janesmithhats.co.uk
may 2019 | 51
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