Catherine Ellen in the winning hat!

It is with enormous pride that I share with you, my ardent readers this wonderful news! Three lovely milliners of the Essential Hat – Susan Drerup, Catherine Ellen and myself, Bonnie Evelyn – had our headwear masterpieces make their way across the seas and into the finals of the ‘flower and feather section’ of the XIXth Summer Hat Festival at Caussade. Not only that, but first prize was taken by Catherine Ellen for her most divine feathered hat of heavenly bliss!

The Summer Hat Festival is an international millinery event held in the town of Caussade in the South of France during the Bastille celebrations. Hat makers from around the world congregate to share, discuss, demonstrate and sell all things related to the age old tradition of wearing things upon ones head.

The festival runs over four days with the hat competition held at the very end. Hats travel from near and far to fight it out for the honour and glory of being worn upon the catwalk amongst the best hats in the world. Not all will make it – the competition is fierce – but for these three masterful milliners of Melbourne, that dream came true!

Congratulations ladies! Can’t wait to see the brilliant hats and fascinators you come up with for this years Spring Racing Carnival!

The Bonnie Evelyn Entry

Lace Cloche by Sue Drerup

Bonnie 'deep in thought'

It was a dreary Melbourne winters day at the Kings Artist Run Initiative – an artistic hub, home to several studio artists, myself included. There, I was busy making art, minding my own business, when I heard a knock at the door and Bonnie’s voice: ‘Lucy! Let me in! I’ve got a fabulous idea!’ Confused as to why she was not in her own hat-making and fabric-friendly studio, I opened the door. Then, with a whole heap of blabbering and arm-waving, she burst in and took over.

Bonnie couldn’t just make hats out of normal materials like straw and stuff, no! She had an ‘excellent idea’: an all-singing, all-dancing 3D painted canvas hat-a-ful masterpiece!! I tried to take a sneaky photo of her making it but of course, she heard me and had to pose. This is Bonnie ‘deep in thought’ thinking up more excellent ‘things-to-put-on-your-head’ (um, hopefully hats).

So what is it you may ask? I honestly don’t know but I think it’s a hat. Whatever it is, it’s growing, smells of paint and brilliance and it’s in my studio taking up space. This photo really doesn’t do the hat justice, it actually looks spectacular on, even unfinished as it is. I can’t wait to see the hat completed and knowing Bonnie, it will be amazing. So hop to it Bonnie, love ya guts, but I want my studio back!

Guess what?!….I just received a parcel from Paris! HURRAH! Truly there is nothing more exciting then arriving home to find a big box full of hat making goodies!  A massive thanks to Sue Drerup and Catherine Ellen (fellow amazing milliners), for shopping on my behalf – I can’t wait until you both come back to sunny Melbourne!

The excitement caused by the arrival of these foreign treasures has spurted a major hat making frenzy, wherein I’ve been madly pinning together numerous inspired headpieces, then coming up with more brilliance and moving on to even more inspired headpieces. I have now run out of pins. Guess it’s time to exercise a bit of self-discipline and just finish one at a time….

One thing is for certain, come spring time Bonnie Evelyn Millinery will be stocked up with a range of dynamic hats and fascinators of sublime design!

Hello dedicated admirers of Bonnie Evelyn Millinery – allow me to introduce myself. I’m Lucy, Bonnie’s big sister and administrator, marketing guru and self-proclaimed ‘Vice President’ of the Bonnie Evelyn Millinery Empire!  I’m here to keep you up-to-date with all things Bonnie Evelyn: the inside goss, the sneaky pics and the behind-the-scenes tid-bits while she’s busy creating her masterpieces!

As you can probably guess, there’s a lot of work involved in being a brilliant milliner, that’s why Bonnie needs a caring, non-bossy big sis to “Ohhh!!” and “Ahhh!!! yes, that hat looks BEAUTIFUL!!!!” at her during that long period of time artists call ‘creative development’. So join me as we watch and wait to see this seasons hats bloom from the buds of ideas sprouting from the depths of Bonnie’s mind…..

Vice-President Lucy

The Genius at work

Kelly- self portrait

Todays blog is a fond dedication to the lovely Kelly Bannister who has been producing the stunning photography that is featuring on the background of this hot new website.

Kelly has been working with me to create the image of style and sexiness that embodies the Bonnie Evelyn label (and has been doing a mighty fine job!) She is an up-and-coming photographer who works on a number of different projects and is soon to have some shots in a fitness publication. Check out some of the other awesome stuff she has done on:

xthatsmeinsideyourheadx’s photosets on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thingsbeyondthings/

Here are some of my favorite hat pictures:

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  Kelly- self portrait