Bard Graduate Center

 I really enjoy experiencing museums in the city that I probably would not find on my own. As a hat wearer, I have never really thought about the history behind hats. The tour guide was very passionate about hats and shared some very interesting facts and history on the certain hats. In the first display we saw, my favorite hat was the "Kiss of Death" hat, it was so different and had a shape that I have never seen before. Even though I had favorite hats that I would wear, the traditional hats from different cultures were the most interesting to me. In the US we wear hats mostly for either warmth or fashion, but in other countries depending on which side of the hat sticks out more can mean you are married, or single. There was so much that I had learned from the tour about hats, what hat makers are called, how their showrooms are called Salons, and most interestingly how they are made. The video we watch on how the designers create these one of a kind hats was not what i was expecting it to be. Each hat is carefully molded on wood shapers and then steamed on them to keep the shape, each piece is also hand sewn. Watching the process which only took about a day to make the hat made me wonder about mass produced hats and how they are all probably machine made and I would love to see what that process looks like. Stephan Jones is an amazing hat designer, he has designed for so many different fashion houses, and has created history and one of a kind hats that are so unique. I truly appreciated the art and now I appreciate the process of it more being that they are all hand done and can take almost an entire day to finish just one!