I've met Kathy. She really is the patron of whatever team she's playing for. Super classy lady. I wonder if I can be the Tanqueray of taxidermy?
Sure, why not. One of the players complimented our headwear during the lap; you can hear me thanking him.
In case you couldn't tell, yet another Sunday was well spent by yours truly taking in a match at Brandywine Polo Club! I gathered up two of my favorite gals and tried out two new fascinators on them.
Pearl is sporting a piece fashioned from one of the vintage hats recently gifted to me; I used a chicken of the frizzled breed with spiky, featherless feathers. Perfect for holding jewels!
I attached a quail head-piece I've been working on to the "muppet" fascinator from the vintage set. None of these pieces are finished quite yet; this was a test run on some works in progress. I'm not entirely happy with this one.
Action!
This was the first time that I lazed about on my blanket during halftime, opting out of the traditional divot stomping. My belly was full of black licorice, champagne and happiness. AS you can CLEARLY see from this photo there was a horse-drawn carriage on the field, complete with a heralding trumpet player announcing its arrival. That carriage actually seems to show up at every match; I think I need to start rubbing elbows with that lot.
If I could only get up.
Here is Maria trying to cut the end off a particularly sharp spiky feather vein that kept poking Pearl in the neck. I had no intention for the hat to be so dangerous.
Did I mention she's using the serrated-edge mini-blade on a wine opener? After two bottles of champagne that can be hazardous.
Alas, all ended well. We stuck around and I talked hats with some of the club members; we nibbled on strawberries and called it a day.
Yes, yes...while the nuptials haven't quite taken place, the party has been presented their headwear for the big day so I am free to share them with you, my little doormice (all 8 of you!)
Birthday? My dear child, this is NOT a birthday party.
Is this getting curiouser and curiouser? My apologies, but "Alice through the Looking Glass" is such an irresistibly quotable story. It's also the theme of this bride's wedding. Without knowing this, I suggested using a petit lapin as the taxidermic element to her fascinator:
This is a detail shot to show just how delicate this little guy is. I used an antique hand-made glass eye to give the face more expression, depth, and dolliness. This ain't your mamma's March Hare.
For the 5 bridesmaids I made a collection of combs with similar elements/color, but each unique in its own fashion, just like the girls themselves! Each one is based on a pheasant wing, with a bird (mostly pheasant) talon and then embellished with vintage findings:
Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction...
It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change.
Off with their heads!
And here is the bridal piece, in its full glory. I'm very proud of this one; the tatted lace base was provided by the bride and blends with the rabbit perfectly. I am eager to see photos of all the beautiful girls wearing these on the Big Day!
While looking for a fun little video to insert into this post, I found a gem series called "Alice on the Wall." Oh boy.
First, you take about thirty vintage hats and fascinators.
Next, you put them in some fabulous antique hat boxes (stack the hats thusly, please):
Then, you give them all to ME!
Me? Did someone say....ME? Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.*
Anyone who knows me really well can spot two of the most special people in the world gracing the outer edges of that picture above.
Seriously, though, how amazing are these boxes? I want to live in a time where items are crafted this well out of materials that AREN'T plastic.
Foxy!
This Stetson box had an inner structure to support a top hat, but it was so worn the actual box didn't quite survive.
I'll take time to photograph the hats better in the future, but here are a few I hung up in my studio. Several of them were too perfect to alter, so they're in my dressing room awaiting a wearing. The rest are a bit worn/tired, and just begging to be embellished/repaired.
This little number I call "Blue Haze". It consists of a simple navy cap swathed in a cloud of blue veiling and white flowers.
Judging by the hand stitching over the tag, I'm guessing this hat was a homemade creation, embellished post-purchase. Discoveries like this make me feel closer to some woman I never knew. DIY at its finest.
A simple black cap:
A green bow fascinator! Perfect for a wedding...I may taxiderm it up and add it to my Bridal collection.
A cream fascinator with white florals. This ones a doozy! I can't wait to show you what I've done with it.
There were some veils in the bunch as well. More for the Bridal collection....
Also, sorry these pictures aren't so great. It's clear to me I need to invest in some new display heads.
Here is a darling little black veil with white silk flowers on top! I almost love it the way it is too much to change it.....almost.
These roses! J'ADORE!
Here's another veil, off-white with some red roses. A little worse for the wear, but I love the idea.
I call this one the muppet poof. It's already been switched up a bit; another potential Bridal piece in the works.
This is a simple black velvet wire base fascinator:
And another, non velvet....
I've been having a very exciting morning pairing natural/animal elements with these vintage pieces and everyone is getting along swimmingly. Updates coming soon!
*a reference to one of my favorite videos:
A HUGE thank you to my mother, and her pal Carol, without whom this well of inspiration would not have happened for me. XOXOXO!
I finally got around to working on a bear-skin rug for a client; she is another really fun individual to work with who basically said, "make it as glitzy and shiny as possible."
Words to live by.
So I set out to source materials and make the sparkliest, most pizazzified bear-skin rug the world has seen.
I bought the skin frmo a hunter who shot the bear with a bow and arrow, harvesting the animal for food. The cape arrived tanned and fairly soft but I had to rehydrate some parts to soften them up more in order to work with the facial areas.
Opal the cat approves of this fur.
Here is the head form. I altered it slightly to express a nice Elvis-like lip curl, and proceeded to plaster the top left fang with crystals.
Diamond Tooth, indeed! And this is just the beginning. Stay tuned for an update on this hunka hunka burning work in progress.
Here's a quick little ditty about a hair pin I made for a very special gal who celebrated her birthday yesterday. I didn't have a ton of time, and I was given some very basic guidelines (she's kind of girly and likes shiny things!) so I ran with it. The other caveat (for lack of a better word) is that the birthday girl sports a massive mane of dreadlocks. Long, thick, beautiful dreadlocks, so a typical fine toothed silver plated hair comb wasn't going to work. I opted for a pin and combined dyed deer tail (typically used for making fly-fishing lures), pheasant feathers and a vintage gem earring.
When my friend opened her gift; her joy was unmistakable. I wish the happiness I glean from giving other people something they genuinely love could be bottled and used as currency. It feels better than money. Not really knowing her style or preferences, I went with my gut and wound up with a product that, accordingly to the recipient, was an uncannily perfect fit. This brings me so much joy and seems to be a recurring theme in my custom pieces, which is more than I could have hoped for. I will touch upon this more when I post pictures of the bridal pieces I presented recently to a client- but until the wedding those details must remain under wraps.
"Oh hello there. Like the view? This is what a winner looks like, dearie, and don't forget it. "
Well, at least I was viewing this from the shaded and breezy environment inside the winner' box whilst sipping my ice-cold Cartier champagne. Those ladies had to roast out there for a good fifteen minutes.
Do I sound catty? Bitter? It's no wonder, given the fact that after making two special pieces for the hat competition at Ladies day at the Devon Horse Show, with the goal of winning the Mad Hatters category, we missed the entire judging. Unbeknownst to us, (with any sort of update suspiciously absent from the website), the judging had been moved up by over an hour. I heard claims of excessive heat being the reason for this, but I can't help but wonder if they heard we were coming and decided to slide one in under the wire.
Paranoid delusional, you say? Maybe. Maybe not.
Greg Powell, the talented milliner who took last year's blue ribbon, wears one of my fascinators and laughs in disbelief at our crummy luck.
Fortunately we looked too good for anyone to deny us access to the judge's box, so all four of us were invited in to sip on champers and mingle with the winners. Here is my lovely model Rachel, wearing what was intended to be my mad hatter entry #1. She is primarily a photographer when she's not being a good sport and wearing hats for me; in fact she took all the pictures you see on this post. Due to the heat and our massive champagne consumption that day, she feels these photos may not be up to snuff. Please check out her site: rachellynnk.com
And here I am wearing entry #2, with the fabulous Megan donning the tried and true duck wing fascinator that all the galslook great in. I love her pose in this picture but I'm not sure what my hand signal is saying.
The mad-hatter entries were composed of hand-made visors (something I plan to expand on more for my fall line) and a swirl of fancy chicken wings, outstretched and reaching upwards. Looking at them on our heads in photos, I already see a million things I want to change. For a one-off experiment though, I would say I am pleased.
Maybe I was asking for a close-up shot of my eyelashes. Pony lashes, to be specific. Carson Kressley noticed them right away, maybe because they were framing my huge, sad, about-to-burst-with-tears eyes as I watched all the winners being announced and he said "Where were you? You were late!"
We made our way up to the stands to watch some horse action (I guess that's why we're all really there) where we were joined Lauren St. Clair Lynch. As gracious as ever, she only had nice things to say about my hats while we enjoyed light snacks and sipped on a creation I'd like to call a gasoline shandy.
Looking good:
Looking very, very good. All winners in my book.
Rachel and I:
Discussing plans for Ladies Day domination next year, which include but are not limited to: camping out overnight, sprinkling tacks on all surrounding roads, and planting moth eggs in the closets of our competition.
Actually, that was Megan, a very experienced rider, giving us the scoop on side-saddle. I never fully appreciated how difficult a skill set this is, to ride mounted with legs draped on the same side of the horse. All I can think of is how sore the rider's back must be afterwards. I believe the reason this method of riding originated was to protect a woman's purity, both figuratively (a woman straddling a large beast could be quite unbecoming) and literally (it was thought that her hymen would not remain in tact unless her legs were firmly shut).
As I watched these graceful ladies make their way around the course, moving seamlessly with the horses despite the intense raging heat and the added difficulty of handling everything from one side of the horse, I thought about how throughout history women have been thrown extra challenges, just because of our bodies and the fear they evoke in the opposite sex. Foot binding, corsets, all the little hoops the fairer sex has been made to jump through (by men and women alike) that have only bred a stronger and more adept, versatile woman over time. Try keeping an air bubble from rising up in the water; use your hands, use machines, whatever device the mind can think up, but the plain and simple fact is that the air will rise up to the top. Time is on our side.
Did that just get weird? Here, look at Greg, watching in awe as horses jump over a five foot tall oxer (two obstacles placed closely together).
Outside the fairgrounds, I turned to a tree stump for sympathy. I'm not going to lie; I was crestfallen for the rest of the day. It's really hard on the heart to have expectations and not meet them.
Fortunately, every day is an opportunity to be a better person then the day before, so I listen to the wise words of Aaliyah and TImbaland and motor on.
