Millinery – The Art of Hat Making

This course is ideal for complete beginners to the art of hat making, or for those with some previous experience who wish to further their skills amongst like-minded students.

You will be introduced to the most common and not so common fabrics and materials, hat construction methods and techniques by Arts University Bournemouth specialist tutor Chloe Scrivener.

Spring Course: You will learn how to work with Felt and Sinamay with the aim of making two completed hats.

With inspiration drawn from history through to contemporary millinery, this course will encourage you to develop your own style whilst learning different techniques for your hat and fascinator creations. Using your individual flair and imagination and a range of fabric and trimmings you will be shown the various techniques necessary to create stunning headpieces.

• Guided sessions on working with specialist millinery materials and a range of different millinery techniques
• Handouts specially designed for the sessions highlighting content learned
• Guidance through essential techniques of the range of appropriate millinery processes required to complete individual designs
• Learning how to master the skills of hand blocking, hand manipulation, determine proportions, trimmings and finishes of hats
• Learning how to design and make hats using specialist equipment and hand sewing techniques
• Learning about the history of hats and understanding the relevance of your own designs in the present day
• An introduction of other contemporary milliners, and hat makers

The course aims to:

• Provide you with more knowledge, skills and confidence
• Provide extended practical sessions to develop the skills required to create two hats using two different materials (Autumn Term: Felt and Straw and Spring Term: Buckram and Sinamay)
• Enable you to learn and apply your creativity, understanding and technical skills to your personal millinery practice
• Enhance your understanding of the processes and techniques used in millinery.
• Enable you to produce two hats using new techniques and processes developed through practical demonstrations and experimentations
• Develop your understanding of how to use the studio and millinery equipment safely and creatively
• Work alongside fellow students and share practice in order to develop awareness of the possibilities and limitations of your own ideas and creations
• Develop your practical experience and understanding millinery techniques including time management
• Enable you to explore industry standard millinery equipment, developing your confidence and understanding of millinery equipment and best practice
• Raise your awareness of ethical, social and cultural issues related to millinery

• Assessment will be continuous throughout
• All students with 100% course attendance will be issued with an official AUB Short Course Certificate of Attendance detailing course contents, and study hours

The course is aimed at students who have little or no previous experience, or may have some experience and wish to consolidate their understanding with lots of practical hands-on experience.

• A basic sewing kit including paper and fabric scissors
• Small snips
• A thimble (metal preferable) than fits your middle finger
• Millinery hand sewing needles of various sizes – a mixed pack of 3-9
• Household pins (these are thicker and shorter than dress makers pins)
• Dress making pins
• Thread
• Tailors chalk
• Tape measure
• Pliers
• Apron
• A pencil and notepad
• Please note, you will need to purchase quantities of specialist materials to complete your hats

All additional course materials are included in the course fee.