Albertus Quartus Swanepoel calls hats the orphan accessory, not because we don't love them, but because they are often the last to come to mind when styling ourselves. And maybe they are the easiest to go without, especially in a fashion era of the "it" bag and recognizable red-soled Louboutins. Yet at the forefront of a recent hat upswing on the runway, is Swanepoel, who even put millinery on the CFDA map. "The designers I work with, it's never start with the hat and go from there, hats are unfortunately the last thing they think of," said Swanepoel, making Fashion Week his busiest time, "It gets really intense, I record at no sleep for three days."
But with collaborations with the likes of Marc Jacobs, Thakoon, Peter Som, Jason Wu, and Carolina Herrera, when Swanepoel does find time to sleep he is dreaming of ribbon, beading, and straw, trying to conceive their visions so his creations compliment each runway collection. "The designers really do challenge me to do things with plastic, leather, all sorts of weird stuff, that I would never consider, and it is really tricky for me as a hat maker," said Swanepoel as he sat surrounded by high hung hats in his Manhattan design studio, most notable a white hemp brimmed hat with black vintage ribbon, and a patchwork fedora made of tribal swatches from his native South Africa. "For Alex Wang I had to find a way to keep a wide brim really, really straight and upright. I ended up with materials you'd make a dashboard from. But once steamed, formed, and covered with leather, it was the only thing I could get stand completely rigid on the runway." These technical challenges is what keeps it interesting for Swanepoel, though he says it's the traditional materials he favors, like felt and straw.
In fact, Swanepoel left Africa as an acclaimed fashion designer himself. Then in the early nineties, the newly New York-based designer took a hand, literally, at a new craft; glovemaking. When spring and summer, the slow seasons of his business, rolled around, Swanepoel "begrudgingly" decided on Millinery training at FIT. It was indeed a great career choice, as Swanepoel found a mentor in Janine Galimard, a highly esteemed milliner who worked with Cristobal Balenciaga in a time when hats were on a completely different level on the fashion forum. In 2000 when Swanepoel went to business with a mens-only hat line, he had a mere two clients, Bergdorf Goodman and Paul Smith. There may have been only two, but they are big names indeed. "But then I was doing the Marc Jacobs runway shows for a few seasons," said Swanepoel, "and got introduced to a stylist working for Proenza Schouler," This new relationship with Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez yielded the unforgettable turbans in spring of 2005, and is Swanepoel's marked career turning point. "I got an insane amount of interest the very next morning, with emails from Barney's and Neiman Marcus asking to see my collection. I literally, in two weeks, pulled myself together and made a fall line," said Swanepoel.
Swanepoel who favors the aesthetic of haute couture, particularly Dior and Dell'Acqua, still keeps his everyday-wear hats classic, adding color and adornments that won't take away from a purpose. "It is tricky because women want something trim and something they can recognize, so there is and there isn't a lot you can do with hats. I try to push myself or at least come up with something new," said Swanepoel. "Some girls wear it as a way to be noticed, while other girls want to hide. I think hats are so personal which is why I love doing more intimate pieces, because you really need to relate to your hat, sort of like a perfume," he added.
Swanepoel insists that ladies need not fear the hat, but embrace it as the perfect compliment to an outfit. Finding a "chemistry" based on proportion and color takes nothing more than a good eye. As for standard guidelines, the rounder your face, the wider you can go, as where a longer face can carry something square. Swanepoel is attempting to make his hats even more attainable by working with his present vendor Barney's on a possible CO-OP collection, this is in addition to new endeavors with Coach, The Gap, and Kate Spade, "I have been incredibly lucky, it's all about pushing the hat a little bit further."
