Head Start To Finish

Ok, one more bit of hat magic. Here's a little extra sumptin' sumptin' to add to the post below. Watch a Stephen Jones hat go from theoretical to wearable. See it being hand made, beginning as a plastic covered wood form and winding up a sophisticated and distinct even-stitched top hat.

It's like on Sesame Street when they took you to the crayon factory, only with fancy chapeaus instead of wax kids' snacks.

Put It On Your Head.

V&A is hosting a new show about British milliner extraordinaire, Stephen Jones, who has hat head in the best way possible. It's his God-given talent to festoon noggins with fancy, clever, spectacles of well-crafted head gear and he's been doing it brilliantly for years. The show, called "Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones" is a retrospective with some new pieces thrown in. The new pieces are fanciful Jones through and through.

Here, spend a few minutes with the man who made hats for Princess Diana and Boy George and regular folk who like lobsters on their heads. Also, joy of joys, meet some of his quirky team:

Want to participate in the eccentric British hat tradition in a safe, watered-down, nonthreatening American way? You can get some cute-as-candy hat-themed accessories created especially by the V&A to be gift shop saleable at the exhibit. You can have a hat headband or a hat hair clip or a collection of die-cut paper hats to make your brain house extra pretty.

They would all be perfect for your next fete-a-tete. Click any of the items above for ordering information.

Click any photo for source information.

Hat's off

I know Sarah Jessica caught a nice amount of flack for her recent decision to don a flowery, butterfly festooned, acorn hat at the London premier of Sex and the City, but I'm kinda jealous. Those Brits really know how to top a person off. I wish Americans were a little more accepting of the crazy hat craze because I would love to rock the Stephen Jones pieces featured in today's Future Tense video on Showstudio.com. The video entitled Soma Holiday was shot by Chloë de Carvalho backstage at Basso and Brooke's Spring/Summer 2008 collection.

Colorful, floating discs of Op Art: they should be the next big thing.