"LONDON: Berets, wide-brimmed hats and cloches popping up on the runways, plus an increase in the number of students signing up to be schooled in the subject, seem to indicate that another millinery moment is imminent.
But look around on Paris or London streets and it appears that hats are not yet quite the "happening" accessories that shoes and bags are.
"It's very interesting. You don't see many hats on people's heads. However, many of the designers that show here have a good business," said Patricia Lerat, organizer of the French accessories exhibition Première Classe. Brands like Philip Treacy, Stephen Jones and Muhlbauer will be among the 25 labels exhibiting at the event March 2 through 5.
"The market used to be about formal occasion wear, but in the past couple of years there has been a move towards urban and sports," Lerat said. "There are a lot of designers from England because hats are part of the culture there, you just have to look at the success of designers" like Treacy, Jones and a newcomer, Misa Harada.
The British designer Karen Henriksen will introduce her fall hat collection at the exhibition. Henriksen, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, is showing her Windswept collection of asymmetric caps, which come in tweeds, leather or waxed cotton and lend a modern twist to the old-fashioned working man's flat cap.
Like Henriksen, there are many in Britain eager to follow in Treacy's footsteps. "At Central Saint Martens there used to be only one hat making course per year and now there are between four and five a year which are all over booked," said the hat designer Ian Bennett, who also teaches the Millinery Masters program at the Royal College of Art and at Kensington & Chelsea College.
In addition to selling from his eponymous store in The Oxo Building, which he opened last November, Bennett makes one-offs for designers like Hamish Morrow and Boudicca and for films, including the acclaimed "United 93."
But aspiring milliners, even those in Britain, know the business has its problems. "When I started out, I got into a bit of a panic as I realized that I was entering an industry that on the whole was in decline," said Noel Stewart who also studied millinery at the Royal College, worked for Jones at Christian Dior Haute Couture and has since started his own namesake label.
"Since then I have come to understand that it is not in decline, just reverting to an older mode," he said.
"While the heart of the English hat trade in Luton will never be what it was — China has seen to that — the U.K. still has the most formidable history of producing world-class milliners. The department stores have largely closed or reduced their hat departments but every milliner I know is worked off their feet," Stewart added.
Treacy, Britain's leading milliner, has helped keep the profile of hats high ever since he graduated from the Royal Colleg in 1990. Today, he makes more than 10,000 hats a year that sell in some of the world's leading stores: Harrods, Saks Fifth Avenue, Elena Benaroch in Madrid and Maria-Luisa in Paris.
"The market has expanded enormously, with growth centered on designer and celebrity-led streetwear and many unisex designs," Treacy said, contrasting opportunities of today with those available when he graduated.
A report from Mintel, the consumer marketing group, agrees that "most growth has been in casual headgear, as opposed to formal hats. Special occasion wear is in general decline, and formal hats have fallen victim to the pervasive trend for casual styling, and declining numbers of social occasions such as weddings and christenings."
The Fashion Accessories Retailing report from March 2006 also identified an upturn in sales. "Hats accounted for 18 percent of total accessories expenditure in 2005, with sales of around £102 million, representing a rise of 21 percent since 2000," it said.
Beyond Britain, Treacy said, "trends are country specific. In the U.K., occasion hats are very strong, inspired by the royal family and the season such as Ascot and Henley. Streetwear is led by sporting icons, the music world and celebrities. There is a strong religious market for occasion hats."
"In Japan there has been a massive increase in the young trendier market," he said, "while in Russia there has been a massive increase in spending across the market due to a massive increase in spending power."
One of Treacy's colleagues echoed his observations. "The hat business is definitely getting better. However we all need the Japanese because they probably wear the most hats," said Klaus Muhlbauer of Vienna, whose fashion-forward hats recently appeared in Alice Temperley's show in New York. "Of all the countries, Japan has the longest tradition of wearing hats in winter and in summer to shade women's skin because their idea of beauty is to keep faces pale."
Muhlbauer's family company dates from 1903. He has helped take a hip collection of berets, cloches and fur caps in bright colors with edgy detailing to stores like Le Bon Marché in Paris, Bergdorf Goodman in New York and Isetan in Tokyo.
While the United States rarely is mentioned as a major consumer of hats, the millinery trade also is growing there.
The New York-based designer Eugenia Kim started her hat business in 1998 after graduating from the millinery program at Parson's School of Design. She added shoes to her repertoire in 2004 and subsequently won the Council of Fashion Designers of America's Perry Ellis award for accessories design.
But her heart is still very much in hat making. In December 2006, she published "Saturday Night Hat: Quick Easy Hat Making For The Downtown Girl."
"There are a lot of young people doing hats at this moment so competition to get into department stores is fierce compared to when I started," Kim said. "Although it isn't a volume business it is a good platform from which to start an accessories business. I am selling other product categories because Barneys New York nurtured my talent and asked me to design hair accessories and belts — both big volume businesses."
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