Karen Bailey Millinery
Casino, NSW, Australia
Daring to dream big pays dividends. Today in Paris, making a fashion runway statement, a hat by Australian milliner Karen Bailey.
High reward indeed for what began from an overly imaginative eleven-year-old brim full of ideas deciding what her head needed best, was a hat. Grabbing her mother’s scissors, she eyed a piece of fabric and got to work. Nothing would get in the way of “finishing the hat, look I made a hat, where there never was a hat” to quote the overly imaginative lyricist Stephen Sondheim.
“I don’t remember exactly what the hat was like,” said Karen. “But I have never forgotten that piece of fabric. I cut it from one of my dresses. Something my mother was never happy about.”
But the seed was sewn. Nineteen, living in Rockhampton, Karen read an article about Peter Jago, Australia’s enfante terrible of millinery. Her mind was made up, but how. Should the word “hat” appear in any shape or form she tracked down the source hoping it would reveal information to acquire the art of millinery.
The answer came from a technical school in Sydney offering a correspondence course. Weeks’ worth of work arrived in bundles. Karen voraciously turned the material around, gaining marks in 90+ range, often creatively inverting hats to better suit her imaginings to improve the design. Even then she knew her mind. The next step revealed itself. Elizabeth R was sweeping the Brisbane high-fashion stakes with showstopping headwear.
“I moved to Brisbane. Needing supplies to continue my millinery course I met Elizabeth for the first time. When she saw me wearing one of my hats she offered me a position there and then. This became the turning point, her knowledge, skill, taste, style, craft, artistry she freely passed to me. The everyday work of choosing fabric, trim, ribboning, piping, hand sewing for hours, fabric flower making, all at my fingertips. After three years I understood attention to detail. I felt equipped and ready to go it alone.
“I made a collection of hats expressly to show the buyers at David Jones in Queen Street. Nervously, hatted and with hat boxes bigger than me, I walked into the meeting, and walked out having my complete collection bought by them.”
Thirty years on, with hundreds of unique, one-of-a-kind creations, made and worn around the world, Karen is full of ideas.
“Ideas come from everywhere,” Karen enthused. “It may be a colour, a pattern, the curve of a bird’s wing in flight, angles, architecture, historical costumes. More often, and strangely, I see the hat in a dream hoping to remember when I fully wake. I don’t do sketches; I physically begin making.”
To view the “making” means being invited inside the studio. My imagination lodged in the Victorian era conjures images of stepping inside a bricolage hatbox.
There are rolls of ribbons and trim all colours and textures, buckets of buckram, an abundance of pins long and short all fiercely sharp, scissors and pinking shears share a cosy drawer, hat boxes plain and fancy line the tops of shelves or sit beguilingly, largest to smallest, on the floor beside you. But the heart of hattery, in a showstopping display, floor to ceiling shelving laden with mind boggling shaped and sized wooden hat blocks alongside their companion, small to wide hat brim curved blocks. There is not much machinery evident. It is after all a hand-crafted art. Here the magic begins. This is where Karen’s dreams materialise.
The scope of her millinery success has been worn in feature films and theatre productions, one-off specialty “art” creations commissioned for special events and launches, also a confidential clientele of global high-flyers. Worn at weddings, functions, and race meetings the world over.
Finest materials, flawless finish is her hallmark. You are at the Rolls-Royce end of the market. An eye for detail sets Karen Bailey Millinery at the forefront.
“When a woman wears a hat she changes,” Karen enthused. “She is unafraid being watched, pointed out, talked about. Her stride is self-confident, her head higher, shoulders straight. She walks taller.”
Set outside Irene Molloy’s Millinery shop in the streets of New York Jerry Herman wrote in his musical Hello Dolly exactly what it takes to get away with wearing a hat to make it in society.
We got elegance
If you ain’t got elegance
You can never ever carry it off.
Style, sophistication, elegance is the yardstick of millinery perfection. At the very least a hat must be stylish however, styles come and go. To “complete the outfit”, the cloche, picture hat, beret, fedora, toque, pill box, boater have all been desired. Desire articulated as fashion must at best be sophisticated, most preferably elegant.
Do you remember Jackie Kennedy’s pink pill box hat, Audrey Hepburn’s black hat in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Elegance.
On Derby Day in Melbourne 1965 British model Jean Shrimpton appeared, two hours late on the arm of boyfriend actor Terrance Stamp, in a simple white dress the hemline alarmingly ten centimetres about her knees. No stockings, no gloves, and scandalising racegoers, NO hat.
This brings us back to the Karen Bailey Millinery design making its debut in Paris today at Montmartre Marie Town Hall, a sold-out show of 300 people. A question was raised as to what could be done to refine Jean Shrimpton’s design choice. Hat or no hat? Karen’s hat called ‘Oops’, an imagined response to the fashion faux pas, is a simple, yet upon inspection, exquisitely refined black and white bowl-shaped hat. The white material having a slight “shimmering” effect caught both the light and breeze effecting a perfect counterpoint to the simple shift dress. At the back of the hat a black bow with sharp peaked points. Check a photo from 1965 and look at the toe of the shoes worn that day. Inspired.
Success has been achieved competitively at London Hat Week, MAA Design Award, her latest Royal Brisbane Show entry won Best in Show and came first in its category.
Hats are to be celebrated, something to sing about. Don’t lie, you’ve sung along to “In Your Easter Bonnet.” Randy Newman wrote “You Can Leave Your Hat On”, originally unambiguously growled by Joe Cocker, and in case you missed the memo first time round, re-confirmed by Tom Jones.
Back to the Rolls-Royce of lyricists, Stephen Sondheim and the gravel voiced Elaine Stritch, herself a hat wearer, wrote herself into theatre folklore with her biting delivery, “Does anyone still wear a hat?”
Yes, they do.
Which is good news for Karen.
She has taken a teenage high school student, intent on becoming a milliner, under her wing .
“I’m really pleased. The industry needs more men.”
View a gallery of Karen’s work: https://thegodlesstraveller.com/finishing-the-hat/
Visit Karen’s website: https://www.karenbaileymillinery.com.au/
Hat: Oops! Photo: Stavros Sakellaris Model: Rai Jones
