Photoessay Part 1 of 2: Philip Treacy's hat blocks
Much to my chagrin, i very narrowly missed an exhibit at the Tate Liverpool while abroad this summer--six shelves of Philip Treacy's wood and sparterie hat blocks on display!
It opened a little over two weeks after I was in Stockport for the Hat Museum, dammit. The exhibit is not terribly well-publicized, in that you need to page through the exhibit description to even find out that Treacy was one of the guest curators and makes no mention of the presence of his hat blocks. However, my wonderful friend Califia Davis, who is not a milliner but is a hat-lover and accompanied me to the Hat Museum, did go to see it just today and sent me a trove of detail shots! I'm so thankful to her to be able to see these, and to share them!
Califia sent me so many photos, i'm going to break it up into two posts, and this is the first, in which we have shots of the first three shelves in the exhibit.
One of the things i find so exciting about these images is, if you are familiar with his work, you know exactly which hats came from which blocks, and the opportunity to see things like where the ropelines are carved for shapes like this and this is a great deal of fun.
Here they are, panoramically down the first three shelves...
The last section of the above is an error,
Guy Morse-Brown still makes wood hat blocks in England.
ETA: A reader also mentioned Boon and Lane, another English block carver doing business in Luton.
If you've read the dual-language English/Italian bio of Treacy, you've seen some of these blocks in there in the images from his studio. I believe some of them came along on the "When Philip Met Isabella" exhibition tour as well, which was an exhibit of the hats he made for Isabella Blow.
That's it for now, but tomorrow I'll be sharing images from the other three shelves, just as many MORE amazing hat blocks to see!
And, have you voted for my entry in the Stephen Jones hat contest yet?
Thank you so much for your support, every vote is valuable!
It opened a little over two weeks after I was in Stockport for the Hat Museum, dammit. The exhibit is not terribly well-publicized, in that you need to page through the exhibit description to even find out that Treacy was one of the guest curators and makes no mention of the presence of his hat blocks. However, my wonderful friend Califia Davis, who is not a milliner but is a hat-lover and accompanied me to the Hat Museum, did go to see it just today and sent me a trove of detail shots! I'm so thankful to her to be able to see these, and to share them!
Califia sent me so many photos, i'm going to break it up into two posts, and this is the first, in which we have shots of the first three shelves in the exhibit.
One of the things i find so exciting about these images is, if you are familiar with his work, you know exactly which hats came from which blocks, and the opportunity to see things like where the ropelines are carved for shapes like this and this is a great deal of fun.
Here they are, panoramically down the first three shelves...
The last section of the above is an error,
Guy Morse-Brown still makes wood hat blocks in England.
ETA: A reader also mentioned Boon and Lane, another English block carver doing business in Luton.
If you've read the dual-language English/Italian bio of Treacy, you've seen some of these blocks in there in the images from his studio. I believe some of them came along on the "When Philip Met Isabella" exhibition tour as well, which was an exhibit of the hats he made for Isabella Blow.
That's it for now, but tomorrow I'll be sharing images from the other three shelves, just as many MORE amazing hat blocks to see!
And, have you voted for my entry in the Stephen Jones hat contest yet?
Thank you so much for your support, every vote is valuable!