The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-03-24
A SCHOOL OF MILLINERY
Lent a Good Time TO Learn How to
Make Your Own Hats.
The Aim of One Teacher Is TO Inn
part individuality I'm styIe-WhiIe
Pupils Vary in Talent Not n Single
One Proved an Absolute Failure.


part Individuality in styIe-WhiIe
Pupils Vary in Talent Not n Single
One Proved an Absolute Failure.
One of the most popular as well rs one
OF the most profitable studies to under
take during Lent is the making Cf hats.
There are any number OF pretty girls
and others not so pretty who feel that
they need the aid of a becoming hat to
increase their charms, and there are uoc-
tors wives and lawyers and ministers
wives also who are learning to make their
own hats. They do not Confile themselves
to the Lenten season, for the art is one
that is worth learning at all times. But
at this time of the year all women $
thoughts turn with more or less Ileas-
ure to bonnets. and when prices Of ma
terials are at their highest and ready
made hats are hardly to be looked Mt he
cause of the big dollar laark attached to
them the woman who has any ingenuity
at all goes to the millinor who viii teach
her to make her own bonnets.
There is a Fifth Avenue milliner, says
the New York Times who makes
business of teaching women to make hats
There is no way in which little skill
will save so much money, and with such
satisfactory results. a number of girls
who have the reputation of dressing eN-
ceedingly well have regular allowances,
but these are moderate in comparison
with the amount of money many women
spend upon their costumes. Therefore
they have to economic IL they wish TO
enter into competition, and they do this
In their millinery. They have taken reg
ular course of instruction. learned how
TO make frames or buckram and of wire,
TO puff and shirr and make bows, TO
drape wells, wire lace and ribbons and
weave straw.
II have taught over 500 women in the
last five years." says the milliner teach
err land they tell me, many of them, that
they would not take hundreds OF dollars
for what they learned. They learn more
than bonnet-making. A woman who has
ALWAYS lived at home and never done any
thing in particular has never had occa-
sion to think and when she gets to doing
something for herself she learns a great
deal more than there is in the work Itself
II have my own method of instruction
and A woman learns to make hat with
out knowing it. l take up different parts
of the work by degrees and it is all very
simple First l give pupil a buckram
frame and tell her to make pattern OF
II in paper She draws il out with a
chalkline and cuts It and then l give her a
sheet of buckram and tell her to go TO
work and cut the hat by he pattern. She
does this and then let her put that 3slae
for awhile and learn the stitches by which
the buckram is Sewed together. II Is not
well TO try to do too much of one KIND
of work at a time. 1t becomes uresone
and then it is not possible to do good
work When the stitches are learned the
pupil sews the frame together, and thus
she has the foundation of hat.
Next she makes wire frame She be-
NTH hal nj meas
ure measures another hat If she is to
copy one, and gets the breadth and length
puts her wires in place, and there Is a
wire frame completed. 1t is very simple
when you know how There are all the
other branches, such as covering and
trimming, and they car be carried on IN
definitely for there are many things to
learn, from weaving straw to curling
feathers.
way of colors and shopping. ] tell my pu-
pills in going about never look at any but
the best hats and that cheap things are
never bargains, though it is always wei
to look out for a real bargain when good
things are sold at low prices. There Is a
great deal in learning to utilize material
on hand. In trimming hat the face of
the woman who is to wear 1t should al
ways be kept In mind. There may be ten
hats of the same shape, but IL they are
worn by ten different people they should
be as different the ten people who
wear them. Hats, II they are built with
reference TO certain frocks with which
they are TO be worn, have just so much
more distinction.
ut would be well II women who make
their own hats could sketch. They would
I've able to keep ideas for pretty hats
which they see for future use. Handsome
hats come in soon after the first of the
year and they are picked up quickly by
the people who want the newest and best
things-the people who have money, while
those of moderate means buy later in the
season. 1t is a good idea to keep sketches
these
needed. But, though women can describe
hats to me, l have never yet had one who
could sketch one.
Probably half the women who come to
me expect to go into business for them
selves IL is wonderful how brave they
are about II, too. Most of the women
come from out OF town for business pur-
poses. ] have a great many women from
the South, and they have gone home, and
done very well. They come here TO the
city without knowing a soul find rooms,
and make arrangements to take lessons
and then work away until they feel that
they are competent to start in for them
selves
81 never find people who wish to do it
who can't learn millinery. There are
are none who make failures or show alb
eolutely bad taste. They are all women
with a certain degree Of cultivation. in
the first place, and then II they follow
the modes II is not possible to go very
far astray. The woman who can work
on original lines is the one who is the
most successful, for It is not the things
that are the best, but those which have
their own individuality"