What drew you into the world of hats and millinery?
I stumbled upon the wonderful world of hats quite accidentally when my dear friends Owen and Catherine Morse-Brown took over Guy Morse-Brown Hat Blocks from Owen’s dad more than 20 years ago. As well as the hat block business, Guy and Ann Morse-Brown also founded the Wombourne School of Millinery, How2hats e-books and HATalk e-magazine. They were both ready to retire but Ann had no one to take over HATalk. I had a degree in Creative Writing, so Catherine suggested that I might want to do
it. With three children under the age of four, I wasn’t really looking for work at that time. However, I was intrigued by the idea of taking on the magazine and decided to give it a go. After training under Ann Morse-Brown for a few months, I took over as Senior Editor in December 2006. I quickly became immersed in the world of hat making. The more I learned, the more fascinated I became. I talked to as many milliners as I could and took several hat making courses so that I could really understand the processes I was writing about. I had never worn hats before, but it didn’t take long to discover just how magical they could be.
What do you love about hats?
I love how hats can spark joy in both the wearer and the people around them. I’ve never felt that more so than at London Hat Week, an event which Georgina Abbott of Atelier Millinery and I founded and organised between 2014 and 2024. Hat lovers from across the world would come together to learn, socialise and get inspired. When we went out on the streets for our annual Hat Walk, people would inevitably stop and stare. And then they would smile, because seeing a crowd of people having fun in fabulous headwear is a joyful sight. We even got people
HATalk | APR 2026
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