September 17, 2019 Bev Hulme Leave a comment
I was lucky to be involved with other Year 1 and 2 students in a project for the National Trust who were putting together an exhibition of Anthony Denney’s life and work, at Rainham Hall, where he lived during the 1960’s.
Check it out on their website : https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/rainham-hall/features/anthony-denney–a-new-exhibition-programme-
We were shown some Vogue magazine covers and an article from the 1960’s featuring hats, jewellery and a shoe which he had photographed in his own inimitable style and asked to ‘re-create or re-style’ the accessories in the photo’s.
I have never attempted any kind of millinery before, so this was going to be a big learning-curve for me.
One of the Year 2 students on our course is a milliner and she took the lead in the design and making for the two hats and she was so lovely to share her expertise so we could all be involved.
I worked on stretching, flattening and stiffening the black hat and once it was stitched together it really started to look a lot like the picture.
We decided to add a trim to the hat which matched a necktie or scarf on the picture, so we tried a few options for painting the cream fabric for the trim and another colleague then took it home to finish it.
The display was very simple, just a ‘head’ to balance the hat on so we needed to fix it with double sided mount. When we saw it on display right next to the photograph, we could see how good it looked!
The other hat I worked on was a black and yellow designer hat which was photographed in by Denney for the cover of British Vogue in February 1950 . Denney didn’t necessarily put the main subject centre stage, instead preferring to use other features in the composition to draw your eye away from it.
This hat was going to be a lot more challenging. To get the shape we eventually managed to stretch and stiffen some canvas fabric over a polystyrene head, but it was difficult to get the extra piece to stand up on the right of the crown. I decided to stitch some milliners wire all the way round the hat which held the piece in position and enabled us to shape it to match the one on the picture.
To cover it with the black and yellow taffeta required a lot of hand-stitching and I think we should have twisted the extra piece somehow, but I managed to get it to look almost identical to the picture – and as that was the only view of the hat we had, I challenge anyone to criticise!!
Seeing this hat next to the Vogue cover on display was a real personal and team achievement. Everyone working on the display was doing this in-addition to our college work and recreating something from one old photograph is quite a challenge!
The Denney Edition at Rainham Hall opened on July 29th 2019 and will run until June 2021. There are different displays in each room reflecting all aspects of his artistic and family life – its a great day out!
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Posted in: Hat Making, National TrustFiled under: Anthony Denney, Hatmaking, Millinery, WorkExperience
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