custom made
There is no ignoring it… bow are everywhere, from dresses, bags, gloves, and even croissant’s, the bow trend is back and it’s bigger than ever….Shop our collection of bow Accessories.
Our ‘ BOWS LOVER’ Headbands are the perfect amount of bling to dress up any outfit.
Hand crafted out of wire and Swarovski rhinestones, these headbands are an essential all year round.
Available in three colours, Head over to our online shop to purchase your’s now.
The House Of Hats Newest Collection….’ BY THE SEASIDE ‘ is here just in time for summer.. Step into a world of timeless charm and elegance.
Get ready to elevate your summer style with The House of Hats latest collection of stunning handcrafted hats!
Made from only the finest material and inspired by the timeless fashion of the 1930s our new collection is the perfect addition to your summer wardrobe.
Offering nine new original handcrafted styles exclusive to our brand each delicate piece has been expertly handcrafted in our Sydney Studio by renowned Milliner Ilana Meilak, ensuring that every hat is of the highest quality and designed to last.
We’ve added our signature style of adding vintage trims and buckles to this collection to keep it authentic to the era.
Whether you’ve looking for a stylist for a day at the beach, a chic addition to your summer outfit or simply want to make a statement at your next event, our new collection has something for everyone.
So why wait? head over to our shop to view tghe full collection or pop into our Sydney Showroom to try them all on in person.
Trust us, you wont be disappointed…..
ilana is wearing our AHOY MINI BOATER in French Navy
Watch our ‘ BY THE SEASIDE Campaign Video to view the Collection
ilana wears our ‘ LA BELLE ‘ Red Felt veiled Tilt Hat
October is finally here and you know what that means, yes you guessed it...HALLOWEEN.
If your anything like me, you count down the month's till Halloween and prepare a costume just to get your spook on.
Well i've been super prepared this year and have made an entire collection dedicated to the dark side.
I'm so excited to introduce to you our latest collection for halloween
' ONCE BITTEN ' inspired by all things Victorian gothic.
This collection is going to knock your socks off, I'm very proud of it and i hope you love it as much as I do.
Ever since I was a child i've always been fascinated with the Victorian era, the fashion , the Victorian houses ,the jewellery and everything else.
I always dreamed of owning an victorian bustle dress and hat of course hoping I could wear it and somehow time travel back to that time, so i've conjured up some of that time in this collection along with my love of all things vampires , witches , New Orleans & all the old haunted Mansions.
So here it is and you all get the honour of previewing it first.
We have seven new designs in this collection.
Introducing , our ' LA BELLE ' Hat which screams the Victorian Bustle era with her striped sash bow and face veiling.
Our ' GRACE ' hood hats made of the most luxurious velvet and detailed with vintage rare clasps .
Our ' SPELLBOUND ' Velvet turbans with Rhinestone Spider brooches and our ' ROSES OF RED silk flower headpieces.
Our ' ONCE BITTEN ' Collection is perfect to bring out the dark goddess in you just in time for Halloween.
I hope you all enjoy this collection as much as I did creating it.
Head over to our online boutique to view the full collection.
Wishing you a very spooky season & happy Shopping
Love Ilana
Your Milliner x
ilana wears our ‘ GRACE VELVET HOOD ‘ In Raven
ilana wears our ‘ROSES ARE RED ; Silk flower Headpiece
ilana wears our ‘ROSES ARE BLACK ‘ Silk Flower Headpiece
ilana wear our ‘GRACE ‘ Velvet Hood in Crimson
ilana wears our ‘SPELLBOUND ‘ Velvet Turban in Raven
ilana wears our ‘ SPELLBOUND ‘ Velvet Turban in Crimson
The House of Hats is now offering a new service of Hat reblocking, Hat Repairs and Hat Restorations.
Do you have a hat you love but it’s out of a shape and doesn’t fit like it use to, contact us today to re- block and shape your hat to make it feel like new again
Do you have a hat you love but the trims are a bit out dated or don’t go with any outfits , contact us today to give your hat a new life and re design it adding new trims and creating a new hat for you.
We now offer a hat cleaning service including steaming cleaning, full wet washing cleaning, stain removing and re-blocking.
Contact us today by sending us an email : info@thehouseofhats.com.au
Please include a photo of your hat along with a quick brief of the repair it needs so we can analysis it and get back to you with a quotes.
We are so excited to have our ‘ PSYCHEDELIC ‘ Rainbow Velvet Turban featured in Camilla’s new Collection
PARTY LIKE…. Our PSYCHEDELIC Turban is the perfect turban for the party season.
The House Of Hats Turbans are a selection of fun turban hats in various fabrics and textures all designed by milliner ilana Meilak using her unique vintage style to add that extra glamour to your wardrobe.
Couture Bridal & Fashion Womens Hats Australia. We are an online accessories hat shop ,specialising in a wide variety of unique handcrafted hats, headpieces and Hair accessories with a strong focus on fun wearable everyday pieces with vintage flair. Custom made Millinery made in Australia by Sydney Milliner Ilana Meilak renowned for her unique style that stands out from the crowd.
Biba was a London fashion store of the 1960s and 1970s. Biba was started and primarily run by the Polish-born Barbara Hulanicki with help of her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon.
Biba's early years were rather humble, with many of the outfits being cheap and available to the public by mail order. Biba’s postal boutique had its first significant success in May 1964 when it offered a pink gingham dress with a hole cut out of the back of the neck with a matching triangular kerchief to readers of the Daily Mirror. The dress had celebrity appeal, as a similar dress had been worn by Brigitte Bardot. By the morning after the dress was advertised in the Daily Mirror, over 4,000 orders had been received. Ultimately, some 17,000 outfits were sold.
Hulanicki worked as a fashion illustrator after studying at Brighton Art College inthe late 1950s. She married advertising executive Stephen Fitz-Simon and they soon opened a mail order clothing company that she named Biba's Postal Boutique. Biba was the nickname of her younger sister Biruta.
The first store, in Abingdon Road in Kensington was opened in September 1964.
Hulanicki’s first encounter with her new customers was at 10 o’clock on theSaturday morning it opened; "...the curtains were drawn across the window…the shop was packed with girls trying on the same brown pinstripe dress in concentrated silence. Not one asked if there were any other styles or sizes," Hulanicki remarked.
The brown pinstripe dresses were being stored in the shop because Hulanicki’s apartment was overflowing with boxes of clothes for their mail order service. Fitz-Simon dropped Hulanicki at the shop and went to pick up more dresses, Hulanicki went to the bathroom and when she came back the shop was packed. "The louder the music played the faster the girls moved and more people appeared in the shop. I had sold every dress by 11. After the last dress had been sold, people were still lining up inside waiting for the next delivery.
The shops' main appeal was what was seen on TV on Friday night could now be bought on Saturday and worn that night. As the Biba style (tight cut skinny sleeves, earthy colours) and logo became more and more recognisable, themore and more people wanted to be seen in it.
The second store at 19-21 Kensington Church Street opened in 1965 and a series of mail-order catalogues followed in 1968, which allowed customers to buy Biba style without having to come to London.
n 1973 with the backing of Dorothy Perkins and British Land , the store moved to the seven-storey Derry & Toms department store, which immediately attracted up to a million customers weekly, making it one of the most visited tourist attractions in London.
There were different departments, and each floor had its own theme, such as a children's floor, a floor for men, a book store, a food market, and a "home" floor which sold items such as wallpaper, paint, cutlery, soft furnishings and even statues. The overall design was produced by Whitmore-Thomas Partnership, run by artist/designers Steve Thomas and Tim Whitmore.[Each department had its own logo or sign, which was based on the Biba logo and had a picture describing the department. These were commissioned by Thomas and Whitmore and designed by Kasia Charko.
The store had an Art Deco-interior reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood. and non-traditional displays, Barbara Hulanicki and her husband Simon Fitzsimon have spent £1m refurbishing the Art Deco department store - known as Big Biba - to house her idiosyncratic collection of clothes and accessories.
The Biba Food Hall was also designed ingeniously, each part being aimed at one particular kind of product; a unit made to look like a dog (based on Hulanicki's own dog, a Great Dane named Othello) consisted of dog food; a huge baked beans tin can consisted of only tins of Baked beans; a can of "Warhol's Condensed Soup" etc., all foods having individual innovative units. Also at the new "Big Biba" was "The Rainbow Restaurant", which was located on the fifth floor of the department store and was destined to become a major hang-out for rock stars, but which was not solely the reserve of the elite. With all of these renovations and additions, Biba became known as a "theatre for fashion."Also at the site was the Kensignton Roof Gardens which are still there today.
The move to Derry and Toms in 1973 gave a much needed boost to other more conventional department stores in a lacklustre Kensington High Street suffering from recession.
Dorothy Perkins bought 75% of Biba taking it from a loss of £40,000 to a profit of £300,000.Biba was a victim of the same recession and only survived for two years before closing in 1975.
It seemed people wee happy to come and see the impressive decor and designer goods but were more reluctant to buy.
Barbara Hulanicki moved to Beazil in 1975 and in 1983 she published a book about the Biba enterprise called A to Biba in which she blamed British land forthe demise of the store by running it down to save other parts of its empire.
Twiggy Modelling for Biba 1971
Twiggy Modelling for Biba 1971
Behind the Scenes of the process of silk flower making at The House of Hats studio
Each flower is delciatly hand tooled using heated brass flower tools to create the perfect lasting flower.
A little history behind silk flower making.
During the Middle Ages, nuns started to make artificial flowers from silk to decorate church statues with flowers during the winter, while relying on fresh flowers during the summer. It became a regulation by the church that silk or metal flowers were only to be used for decorating altars. Northern Italy in particular developed a whole industry for making flowers.
In the 19th Century, flowers were used more often in fashion: to decorate clothing, for hat trimmings and in artful hairstyles. The industry spread throughout the world. France, being the leading country for fashion, hosted the most important flower factories and flower artists (Monsieur Seguin, Monsieur Beaulard, T.J. Wenzel – the royal flower maker for queen Marie Antoinette).
Contact The House Of Hats for your own special custom made flowers or headpiece.
Stunning Bride Britta on her wedding day Wearing The House Of Hats custom made silk flower headpiece
Bridesmaid Amy wearing The House Of Hats custom made headpiece
