Brimming with inspiration Retired teacher dives head-first into millinery, hand-crafting hats from repurposed clothing and widely sourced textiles The Creators
By: AV Kitching Posted: 2:00 AM CDT Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024

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This article was published 19/10/2024 (323 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you don a Kelly Bekeris creation you might just be wearing what once was a blazer, a jumper or even a wall tapestry on your head.

The Cooks Creek-based retired teacher used to make mittens from repurposed cashmere and merino wool vintage jumpers but has since moved on to hats.

Bekeris, 72, has created approximately 300 of them in all shapes and sizes since venturing into millinery in 2019.

And while she still keeps an eye out for interesting pieces to repurpose into headwear, she also uses a variety of other fabrics for her designs.

Bekeris’s headwear falls into three categories: sewn hats, block hats and sculpted hats. She posts pictures of her creations on her Instagram account @kellyhatscanada.

Sewn hats — fisherman, wide-brimmed, news boys, Gavroche and cloches — are made from either wool or linen, depending on the season, and are created from patterns or her own designs.

Her favourite design, the quirky Manitoba hat was inspired by 19th-century Victorian smoking caps. As it needed to be sturdy enough to withstand our winters, she added a few more details to the model.

“It has a wool top, a button and a tassel, is lined with quilt batting and is embellished with a with a faux-fleece brim. I made the last 10 of them out of an upcycled wall tapestry which I bought in Ottawa. It’s colourful and functional and a shout-out to my partly Ukrainian heritage,” she shares.

Block hats — a category fedoras, trilbies and pork pies fall into — are made by steaming fabric until it’s soft and pliable, before quickly pulling it onto wooden hat blocks.

The fabric is pinned and left to dry, then thoroughly brushed to bring the wool fibre to the surface.

The hats are either blocked as a single piece, or separately, with the crown and the brim sewn together once the cloth is dry.

Sculpted hats are also made by steaming fabric, but instead of using hat blocks, Bekeris shapes the material with her bare hands while it’s still hot, working swiftly to form the crown and brim before the cloth cools down.

The latter has as much to do with sewing as learning how to put a carburetor into an engine, she shares.

“Oh my gosh, it is so hard. But it’s interesting to try and make something under your hands without a mould. When you make a sculpted hat you are on your own, trying to shape this very hot felt with your fingers before it cools. You need to pin it to hold its shape, but not over-pin it because you don’t want too many holes. I started making them in 2022 and I’ve only made about 12,” she confides.

While all of Bekeris’s hats are handmade in her home studio, the materials they’re made from and shaped on come from locales further afield.

It’s one of the challenges of being a Manitoba-based milliner, she shares.

“I would love to have a hat-supply shop here so I can see and touch what I am buying. I have ordered a hand-carved hat-brim block from London which cost $700; I’ve ordered a fedora hat block and brim from Ireland which is currently being hand-carved. The wool felt for my block hats is from Poland, my friend in France is sending me Spanish interfacing, and I am waiting for Petersham grosgrain from Bath in Somerset, England.”

The reluctant milliner — it’s taken her some time to accept this is what she does — very much enjoys the creative process.

“I went down a rabbit hole when I started making hats. I just love it. I love the different-ness of it. I’m pretty obsessed now and might never emerge from this obsession,” she says.

“Sometimes when I am unsuccessful at drafting a pattern, I say to my husband, ‘I have no background in design or textiles and I wonder what on earth made me try this.’

“And then I think of what milliners do and yes, I am a milliner. I have made all these hats, I have sewn all these hats, what else would I need to do to call myself a milliner?”

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca