Elsa Schiaparelli's Shoe Hat

Here's a picture of the original wool felt shoe hat circa 1938. Clearly the greatest work of art ever created. When i first saw an image of a shoe hat was in the mid 80's; it was a replica in the movie Brazil as worn by Ida Lowry. Then i read about Elsa Schiapparelli a couple years later in an issue of Threads. I was obsessesed. Here was this crazy designer who totally pushed the idea of apparel and textile back in the first half of the 20th century. And, she designed the original shoe hat. Mind you i found a snarky article about her during research for this praxis stating that Elsa Schiaparelli's work was not Art and should not be showcased in museums. But i think that jerk is wrong, and further more Elsa's work IS showcased in museums.

the first wig

Here is a wig i already owned. Yes it's a bit of a mullet, isn't it.

wig 3

My favorite wig which i've owned for a decade, which the website would not upload properly, probably to save you kind viewers from the sheer bliss laden shock of viewing this most perfect specimen of wig-hood at the correct angle.

third wig profile

third wig

another wig i already owned. Wait, it is also a mullet wig! I started with replicas i had already purchased, and quickly realized that all the wigs i already owned were mullet hairdos. I'm not saying one should not be proud of a respectable collection of mullet wigs, but it was clearly time to diversify.

wig shopping

Time to go shopping for a new wig, this time, NOT a mullet wig (though the first wig i wanted to try on at this store was a mullet wig, not to shockingly). This is the only wig we got pictures of me trying on in the store before we were told "no cameras".

new wig

This is the wig I decided to buy. It is perfect! Don't you think. We took the picture outside the store window, so you could see all the competition but the store keepers couldn't tell us not to take photos.

other types of fake hair

I also pondered a fake moustache, since it is also a replica of human hair, but before i had much time to think about it the game plan was changed anyway.

shoe hat shopping

This shoe hat is much too small!

shoe hat shopping 2

Alas, however, none of them fit my head very well and did not look like shoe hats at all when placed atop my brilliant wig. They merely looked like shoes placed on my head. You see, this shoe hat is so small that it won't stay on without my holding it.

more shoe hat shopping

This shoe hat looks like it might be big enough, but while the toe sticks out very far, the opening is still too small for my head. Plus, it does not look at all stylish with my new wig.

mitt hat

The second idea was to look at furniture stores for those crazy shoe chairs that came out a handful of years ago. (They were these plush chairs that looked like a regular high heel shoe -- but bigger). They might look better on my head than an actual shoe because of the larger size. I went to 4 or 5 furniture store, endured a hard sell sale pitch from one guy for a regular non-shoe-shaped chair, and had 4 other sales people tell me "nope, i don't think they make shoe chairs anymore". We found no shoe chairs at the furniture store, only this shoe mitt. It looks very fetching as a hat, but, alas, it will not pass for a shoe hat at all. Much less a replica of Elsa Schiaparelli's shoe hat.

mecca

It was settled, I would have to make my own shoe hat. So i went to my favorite store in the whole world, Vogue Fabrics on Roosevelt Rd.

classic wool

The original hat was made of black wool felt, so i beelined straight for the wool section and found a gorgeous thick black wool melton (which is a very felty coat weight wool).

wool melton and buckrim

It was not cheap, so i bought a modest amount. The sales clerk seemed to think that the best way to construct my shoe hat would be with buckrim, which is a very thick millinery weght lining material. I bought one half yard each of wool melton and hat making buckrim. My salesman did not have his picture taken here, but he should have because he was so damned helpful. Buckrim! of course! why didn't i think of that?

Giselle with buckrim

Here is the buckrim strapped to the back of my bicycle (Giselle) for the ride home.

pattern 1

Back at home i began work on the pattern, which was the trickiest part. There were no online printable patterns for "Elsa Schiaparelli's Shoe Hat" on line. I'd have to free hand. As you can see, i have the printout of the original shoe hat to work with. Not pictured is a plain high heeled shoe which i also referenced frequently in deciding how to construct the hat.

pattern 2

Here i am trying to draft the front top part of the pattern using the sole piece with the heel part attached. I'm working with thick paper.

pattern 3

cutting out the toe pattern piece

pattern 4

Also I used a lot of masking tape and cut and constructed and untaped and re-cut and re-taped for a couple hours until . . . .

completed pattern

. . . finally i had what looked like the right shape that would fit acceptably on my head.

completed pattern on head

I think i have a mock up which will work.

the pattern

I then cut the 3 dimensional pattern along several lines to create three pieces which would lay sufficiently flat.

mock up, sideways

Using the pattern, i sewed a mock up out of some cheap fabric i had. The pattern seemed successful.

cutting the melton

I cut out my gorgeous wool melton and the buckrim and some silver satin i happened to have laying around (for the lining).

buckrim form

after machine sewing the wool, I hand sewed the buckrim adding lots of extra pieces for reinforcing and doing a lot of tucking and adjusting.

sewing everything together

Then i layered the melton form, the buckrim form, and the sewed lining and hand sewed everything together. I realize now that i took very few photos of me hand sewing stuff together. This is misleading, becuase in the end i spent hours and hours sewing bits of buckrim together and sewing and resewing seams of the lining. Just ask some of the other FOEcakes if they saw me dragging the damned thing around to work on during parties.

silver lining

every shoe hat has it's silver lining . . .

completed!

The shape isn't a totally perfect replica of the original, but considering i have no millinary experience at all, i'm relatively happy with it.

The final view.

Yay!