28 March 2021

Celebrating women series

28 March 2021

I often find that we know a lot about people who are famous and have been around for a long time. Over the years I have found that there are a lot of talented people out there in this big wide world of ours. Every time I travel in the Hatmobile into the country I encounter a lot of talented women, doing all sorts of things. They are unsung humans. With COVID I learned a lot of things about the online space and setting up a filming studio as additional space in my workroom I also started talking to people around the globe.
On the first Monday in the month, we just chat as a group about life. You can join us if you like.
Almost weekly we celebrate a woman and speak about her life, how she got to hat-making and why she makes hats. See some of the chats we have had so far below.

Monika Neuhauser is Austrian born and lives in NZ. Runs her own business

It is St Patrick's day and we are celebrating a woman in Dubai who has lived there for many years. She loves the races and makes hats apart from other things.

Evelyn Mcdermott born in Ireland came to Dubai a long time ago and has found hats through flying and horses.

Judith Mishler has been a millinery supplier in the USA for a long time and has seen changes. Now in the age of 71 she is changing hats.

Waltraud Reiner

14 March 2021

Speaking to Linda Asalu in 🇬🇭 Ghana

Waltraud Reiner

14 March 2021

I had a wonderful long conversation with Linda as part of our ‘celebrating women ‘ all over the world. We do this chats in the form of a webinar which means you need to register for free and you can watch and ask questions through the Q&A

We had a lot of people interested and the once who could not make it got sent a recording.

Here you can hear a few minutes of the delightful woman. I felt enriched and elevated after our long conversation which took us from hats and traditional headwear to domestic violence, religion and back agaIn to hats.

Linda Asalu and Waltraud Reiner in conversation

Here Linda speaks a little about fabrics, politics, youth and the time we live in

Waltraud Reiner

26 September 2020

What did 1987 look like?

Waltraud Reiner

26 September 2020

My training happened mainly in London . Even so my true beginnings were in Melbourne. Magda Urban in 241 Hawthorn Rd . Caulfield took me in as an assistant in August 1984. It was love with the hat at first sight. In 1986 I started up my training in London with Rose Cory who showed me all I wanted to know .

Esparterie brims which were covered in cotton and silk

I learned how to make hand bags and soon added such to every hat I made.

She taught me how to handle leather using patterns at first.

Soon I made hats blocked in leather in different foundations. This inspired me to go and find glove making workshops and every hat got the matching gloves .

When we got married Rose of course helped. I found all our cloth in the thrift stores in London for all up 30 pounds. We had very little money and just like all the hatmaking was old hats so we made something new from what we had. It has proofed of great value throughout the years to be able to improvise.

As all material I bought were old hats many had stains and this made me creative of hour to cover up and the technique of spraying and creating patterns was born

In 1997 I started work at Philip Somerville who was the milliner at the time to princess Diane and I was so exited. I learned a great deal in that workshop too. The design on top I made as I thought it was so amazing back than. Also I had no idea about if it was right to copy something I did in the workroom or not. There was little guidance and a lot of secrets.