Why recreate a vintage hat?
Firstly it felt very fragile to handle. Secondly, there was a rip in the lining, which would have been an easy repair, however through the tear I could see the spartre base of the hat was disintegrating. In addition, the velvet covering was wearing away and the gold beading details had tarnished. I wanted to see how this hat could have looked brand new, rather than looking at it in the sorry state it was in now.
My Process
I took it apart completely. This is where I made my first mistake; I didn’t take any pictures of it close up.
The base was made of spartre in 2 pieces, a halo part and a skull cap part. It was wired with a very thin wire. It was asymmetrical – possibly misshaped over time, or a very poor quality construction in the first place.
Attempt 1
I started with trying to make a block out of plaster for the halo part of the hat. I covered the original spartre with gaffer tape and spread vaseline onto it to ease the release of the plaster block. I then used strips of linen dipped in wet plaster to line the inside of the original halo.
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20181105_113208.jpg)
Once the plaster was dry, I covered it in clingfilm and tried to use it like a normal hat block using buckram as my material. I did not cut myself enough buckram to tuck it to the underside of the halo block, this made it difficult to stretch over the block.
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20181103_165047.jpg)
Next was the skull cap part. I also covered this in gaffer tape, and pined it to my mannequin head named Anne. I covered Anne in clingfilm and drew around the original skull cap in felt tip pen. Then I turned the original skull cap inside out, placed it back on Anne and realised that it was very uneven. So I drew around it again (with it the wrong way out) and evened out the line. You can see the unevenness by the part shaded in blue. I later realised that this drawing step was unnecessary. As I repeated it later over the top of the buckram once it had dried.
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20181103_162616.jpg)
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20181103_163904.jpg)
I sewed the 2 parts of the hat together using cross stitches. Then I sewed on a wire frame, and covered that in ribbon binding.
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20181212_115406.jpg)
At this point I was disappointed with the fact that the halo crown was also very uneven, but I persevered on and covered that part with silk viscose velvet. I thought that it might look better when covered, but that was not the case.
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20181212_123815.jpg)
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20181212_123733.jpg)
Attempt 2
I took the whole of my new hat apart.
I tried re-making my plaster block using the best half of the previous plaster block. I did this by blocking another buckram halo, cutting it in half, turning it inside out and sewing and taping it to the best half of the previous buckram halo. I then covered this in gaffer tape, covered the inside with vaseline, and this time I poured plaster straight into the mould rather than using linen strips. This made for a very very heavy block!
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20181216_215647.jpg)
I blocked in buckram again, this time I had enough material to fold in under the block. However I still didn’t like how the result turned out. It still wasn’t sitting correctly on my head.
At this point I was desperate not to give up and purchase a halo hat block. I decided that my dissatisfaction was to do with the materials I had used.
So I tried making a wire frame block – which didn’t work.
I also tried using Dior Net and sinamay on my second plaster block. This didn’t make any difference. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but obviously the materials wouldn’t make a difference, because I still didn’t like the shape of my second plaster hat block! Also with multiple use of this block, eventually it cracked in half. Maybe I should have stuck to using the linen strips plaster method, just as I did with my first block.
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_20190603_201302.jpg)
I think the block cracked because the plaster was too hard to take the impact of hammering the pins into it.
![](https://ilona.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/IMG_20190605_101347-640x640.jpg)
I gave in – I purchased a halo hat block.
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