COLUMN
My area, between the slick sports cars, was the fascinator-making station. Many of the children were too young, so they would tell me how they wanted to design their hats and I would put it together for them. Once ready, many would wear their hats for the photoshoot previously mentioned or just carry the hat in its hatbox around with them. One little girl in particular was sitting on her grandmother’s lap while her father sat next to them. They were watching me make her hat as the girl told me which colours she wanted and which flowers. Her English wasn’t bad. The dad was wearing a Porsche logo polo shirt, and a Porsche baseball cap, obviously quite proud of his car. Near us was a gorgeous new dark yellow Boxster, sparkling in the bright showroom lights. And as the hat making took some time, I started a conversation. While my hands were busy, I nodded to the car looking at the girl, but glanced at the father and asked with a smile: “Does your father have a mustard-coloured Porsche like that one over there?” The father gave me an even bigger smile and said: “Oh no, ALL my Porsches are white.”
The workshops went on and on. I gave them to private international schools, as part of many ‘Dutch Days’ organised through the Dutch Embassy at their Business Support Offices in Wuhan, Chengdu and Qingdao, for and at the Dutch Embassy in Beijing, at the American Embassy as part of their Kentucky Derby celebrations, at the Australian Embassy for the Melbourne Cup, for the Embassy of New Zealand for the Australia & New Zealand Association (ANZA), even a private party-workshop in Singapore, and many more. I still continue organising workshops in Atlanta every year I am there – 2021 was the sixth summer. In the Netherlands, during the summer breaks, I also gave workshops, but now that I live here in Holland, I have given many more: to families, groups of friends, kids and older adults, in their (holiday) homes or in my studio.
In all honesty, I feel there is far less demand for this type of activity in the European market, unfortunately. In China and the US, people love it; they are spontaneous and just want to try something exciting and different. Maybe it’s not so popular here (in Europe) because it’s frivolous or unnecessary. Or there needs to be a reason to validate it, such as a wedding. Once, a Dutch
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lady told me: “I hope we’re making a hat for the rain; I don’t need anything else.” (Come on!) In any case, I had a real blast with my workshops in China; it’s one of the things I really miss about having moved away. There was such buzz.
Now, I am charting these new waters carefully, learning a lot too. But I haven’t given up. The weather is warming up and Covid restrictions are almost completely gone here. I recently offered hat making workshops as an after-school activity at my son’s primary school and they loved the original idea, so I am talking with them. I also approached a few Dutch
magazines, offering a hat giveaway to their subscribers if they included my workshop information in their magazine. 78 readers of Vorsten (a magazine covering royals, so yes, that includes lots of hats) signed up to win my hat. It isn’t press like the cover of Vogue in my China days, but at least I’m not sitting still in my new homeland.
Workshop, Atlanta, 2019
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