This hat was selected as a finalist by the judges in the Mildred Blount Milliners Guild competition in 2024. The directive for this competition was to create a contemporary fashion hat inspired by a hat from a movie made in the 1930s, 40s, or 50s.
I chose a hat worn by Dolores del Rio as Josette in the film, Journey Into Fear (1943) as my inspiration. In one scene, she arrives in full leopard with a fabulous leopard cap with ears and whiskers (because of copyright issues, I'm unable to share the image here). Making a helmet style hat with ears seemed too much like recreating her hat rather than being inspired by it, so I went in a completely different direction.
My hat is a currently fashionable saucer shape. Unable to find leopard patterned sinamay in the color and pattern I wanted, I hand stenciled spots onto taupe sinamay and layered it over gold lurex sinamay for a great shine and natural sinamay on the bottom.
The bow is designed to evoke cat ears. The inner ears are brushed with pink for a healthy glow, with pink ostrich puffs added for irresistible fluffiness. The “whiskers” are made from stripped coque feathers, painted, curled, wired, and wrapped with a leopard rhinestone cord.
The base is lined in silk dupioni, and the leopard rhinestone cord is hand sewn around the underside for a bit of flash from below.
Please inquire if you are interested in purchasing.