From the Neck Up, An Illustrated Guide to Hatmaking

From the Neck Up, An Illustrated guide to Hatmaking

Written by Denise Dreher, From The Neck Up is a step-by-step guide to hat making, also know as millinery. Dreher is an experienced milliner who began her career at the Guthrie Theatre, and has since researched and studied millinery through many libraries, theaters, and museums around the world. She has held multiple workshops in the past teaching millinery, at places such as the University of Michigan, U.C.L.A, and the American Theater Association. She can also be accredited for hatmaking in films such as Les Miserables, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Great Train Robbery. Denise Dreher would make for an excellent source to learn the art of hat making from, and From The Neck Up gives you that source!

Upon review From The Neck Up would make for an excellent reference book, and a great cover to cover read for those who are interested in fashion or costume hat making. Other reviews online say this book is a must for those who are studying millinery! The author herself states that the purpose of this book is to “…make this information easily accessible to everyone.” Further adding, “From The Neck Up was written for anyone interested in designing, making, or wearing hats.” Simply put; this book is for anyone who wants to learn about hat making, even if that person has no experience or prior knowledge.

The book is laid out neatly into lessons, starting with designing the hat, all the way to performing alterations, and everything in between. The instructions are written in a clear understandable way that makes you feel like you can do it yourself. And don’t worry; if you find yourself having the slightest amount of confusion the step-by-step instructions are accompanied with illustrations, making for a perfect balance of images and text! Towards the back of book is a glossary full of words and definitions from the lessons, just in case you may forget what a wood means.

While the book does go over pattern making for hats, the book does include about sixty printed patterns for historical hats, perfect for costumes. The patterns are not to scale, thus they are simply there to serve as a guide to the basic shapes of the patterns. But the patterns will make things a lot easier, especially for beginners.

This book was published in 1981, but the book is still very much accurate in techniques today as it was 34 years ago! But with a decline in fashion millinery some of the hat examples in the book may seem outdated, but that’s not the fault of the book. That is simply a change in styles and trends. The author even brings the decline of millinery up, ''“The making of individually designed hats by hand, once a flourishing profession, is now fading fast. The knowledge and skills are dying along with the people who once practiced them for a living.” ''Nevertheless, the hat styles are still perfect for theatre.

In conclusion, I would say this is a perfect book to learn and reference hat making from. It teaches about almost all of the techniques of millinery, and everything is explained clearly, in steps, and it comes with helpful illustrations and patterns. You could call this book a complete guide to hat making! From The Neck Up has everything you would need to make a great stylish hat, and for a price around twenty-five dollars this book is definitely worth it.