WE at HatFest were thrilled by the incredible talent on show at the 2017 Milliners & Hatters Open – our ‘serious’ hatmakers competition: the 24 worthy shortlisted finalists’ hats made for a stunning display in Bridport Town Hall.
This year’s ‘M&H’ drew more entries than ever, with submissions from across three continents, but our prizewinners proved to be all British-based.
As usual the judging process was completely anonymised: entirely separately, a total of 316 Public Choice votes were cast by visitors appreciating the town hall display.
We’d like to thank the M&H judges, Graham Eckersley, MD of leading UK hat designers and manufacturers Whiteley Fischer, and Denise Innes-Spencer, creative director of the British School of Millinery, for their hard work – we think they enjoyed it – and the generous prize sponsors: T. Snook, Porter Dodson, Aspect Counselling Services and The HAT Magazine.
And thanks to everyone who entered the competition.
(Scroll down for images of the finalists’ hats.)
PRIZEWINNERS
- FIRST: Louise Clark (In an English Country Garden)
- SECOND: Rebecca Cantrell (Posies and Persuasion)
- THIRD: Jennifer Rowley (Fairground)
(All the above achieved GOLD standard)
Public Choice
- Natasha Mobey (Scarlett Twist)
SILVER standard
- Elizabeth Hurst (Modern Edwardian)
BRONZE standard
- Sheri McCoy (Cocktail top hat)
- Alison Tutcher (The Elves and the Milliner)
Highly Commended (HC)
- Hazel Edwards (Mermaid)
- Caroline Hinton (Miniature bridal top hat)
- Eun Young Lee (Fantasia-Dream)
- Gemma Manders (Quick Silver)
- Jules Miles (Sea Creation)
- Tess Piggott (Twist and Turn)
- Ana Pribylova (Mirror Swan)
- Genevieve Reynolds (Golden Wattle)
Other Finalists
- Christine Barnett (Wired ’n’ Black)
- Annette Edgar (Violet)
- Leanne Fredrick (The Birthday Hat)
- Beryl Furey-King (Spring Forest)
- Emily Molyneux (Love-in-the-mist)
- Sarah O’Rourke (Anise)
- Chelsea Micha Ratcliffe (Diana)
- Tomoko Tahara (New Romantic)
- Terry Weston (Avant-Garde)
The prize sponsors were:
1st prize of £500 – T. Snook, hatters
2nd prize of £250 – Porter Dodson
3rd prize of £125 – Aspect Counselling Services
Public Choice prize of a year’s subscription – The HAT Magazine.
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