A hat by Philip Treacy usually defies
gravity, not only because it reaches for the skies without any apparent
means of support, but also because the mere sight of such a hat is
sufficient to raise the spirits. In fact, that's Treacy's manifesto as a
milliner: Hats are joybringers.
Still, there is something overwhelming
about his, so much so that it never ceases to amaze me that every Treacy
hat finds a head. One head, in particular, has been Treacy's favourite to
crown with such creations as outré as a bejewelled lobster and a galleon
in full sail. That head belongs to the English stylist and professional
muse Isabella Blow, one of fashion's genuine eccentrics.
Blow and her collection of Treacy hats
are to be celebrated in a travelling exhibition, which opens on July 5 at
the Design Museum in London, and will then visit the various Guggenheim
museums around the world. The show's title, When Philip Met Isabella, is
replete with pomp and portent. But then, in the world of fashion, it was
indeed an auspicious moment when, in 1989, Treacy connected with Blow. The
daughter of an aristocratic family whose family seat, prior to the First
World War, looked out on 34,000 acres, Blow was a fashion assistant at the
high-society magazine Tatler. It was there that she had been first wowed
by one of Treacy's early designs, executed while he was a student at the
Royal College of Art.
"Isabella's a punk; I'm just a
hatmaker," says Treacy now, in his characteristically laid-back
manner. Still, few in the know would dispute that the friendship between
the high-born fashion addict and the Irish milliner worked wonders for the
status of the hat in fashion.
"It was liberating to meet
Isabella so early in my career," Treacy says. "When I finished
my college show, people were saying, 'Why are the hats so big?' They
didn't understand. It wasn't about size. It was about elegance and
proportion in relation to the body, not just the head.
"Isabella taught me not to
worry," he continues. "I fed off her enthusiasm for wearing
extraordinary things in the most ordinary of places. There is nothing
self-conscious about her hat-wearing. She wears hats like she's not
wearing them, which is the best way."
The payoff for Blow has been an
unimpeachable reputation as fashion's doyenne of the new. Think of any
other modern patron -- the Brit-art benefactor Charles Saatchi, for
instance -- and one might envision a shark consuming its young. But Blow,
more a muse with lots of pull, nurtures her young finds, and occasionally
even puts them up in the garden shed behind her faux Elizabethan manor in
the Cotswolds. And since those finds include Philip Treacy and Alexander
McQueen, that petulant wunderkind of Britfash, it's safe to bet that Blow
has carved herself a niche in style history.
Others have benefited from her
enthusiasm -- among them London designers Jeremy Scott, Julien Macdonald
and Tristan Webber -- but Treacy and McQueen seem to share a special
status in Blow's world. Aptly enough, ever since Blow introduced them, the
two have worked together on all of McQueen's collections -- the best
imaginable tribute to Blow's prescience. The aristocratic but notoriously
and perennially cash-strapped Blow has often said it would be nice to be
put on the payroll by her protégés as they prosper. But, poor as she may
be now, her Treacy hats and McQueen outfits will inevitably end up as part
of some museum's permanent collection, so she will at least be instated as
an object of fascination for future generations.
The Design Museum's exhibition offers
20 good reasons why. There's a hat that looks like a Triffid pod splitting
open to disgorge the wearer, and another that completely encases the head
in a rattan weave, leaving only the eyes visible. There are wings and
flying saucers and shivering pom-poms, and a hat modelled after one of Mad
King Ludwig's Bavarian castles. Blow is particularly fond of one creation
dubbed the Pheasant, an attenuated flurry of feathers in flight. Treacy
prefers the Ship, inspired by a moment in the late 18th century when
Parisian women wore ships in their hair to a night at the opera to
celebrate Admiral D'Estaing's victory over the English fleet. "It's
almost shocking to think that this was the hippest thing, like the latest
Gucci jeans," Treacy muses. "I made the hat in sections and one
night I stayed up putting them together. It was like magic: It didn't look
like a toy ship. It was poetic and elegant."
If the Ship is Treacy's favourite hat,
his favourite part of the show is actually its catalogue. Published by
Assouline, it features Isabella snapped by a handful of the world's best
fashion photographers in her Treacy confections. Treacy is thrilled to
have such a concise visual record of his career: "It shows how the
meaning of a hat has changed dramatically, from a conservative accessory
to a rebellious accessory," he says.
"Hats are very much alive in
people's imaginations and on their heads. They express the power of the
individual -- and individuality is the future of fashion."
- Tim Blanks
Saturday
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