Jill Tracy: Belle of The Edwardian Ball

"I revel in this nightmare but I keep waking up too soon..." Haunted By the Thought of You

One of our favorite customers is musical evocateur and Belle of The Edwardian Ball, Jill Tracy.  Dubbed "the cult darling of the Underworld" by LA Weekly and "the femme fatale for the thinking man" by The San Francisco Chronicle, Jill's music evokes another time and place. A place that could be inside a beautiful dream or, more likely, a glamorous nightmare.  

Jill Tracy wears 'Viola' mini top hat in tiger-print melousine at  DNA Lounge (photo courtesy of Audrey Penven)

Jill's musical gifts are matched only by her fantastic sense of style and we are delighted she often wears a House of Nines original on stage when she performs.  We are very excited to announce that she will soon start carrying some House of Nines exclusive styles at her online retail shop!

 Photo by filmmaker Jeremy Carr from "Portrait of a Nightmare"

Jill has been performing at The Edwardian Ball since its inception 13 years ago and her name has become synonymous with this ever-growing event for lovers of Edward Gorey, ballroom dancers, the Steam Punk set, and Edwardian-bedecked revelers.  Jill's haunting songs and stories set the mood for this annual music and art festival.

Jill Tracy wearing a custom 'Wellington' mini top hat at The Edwardian Ball (photo by Samuel Coniglio)

Jill is the first musician in history to receive a grant from the famed Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. The medical history museum contains a collection of medical oddities and antique medical equipment and Jill's new project for 2013 will be based on their collection. 

Jill Tracy performs a Musical Seance with violinist Paul Mercer at The Conservatory of Flowers (photo courtesy of Audrey Penven)

 Recently, Jill has continued with her series of concerts at The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. Working with San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, Jill Tracy has created an unusual after-dark series focusing on a variety of alluring subjects (poisoning, alchemy, ghosts and violins, perfumes) while allowing audiences to tour the wondrous Victorian Greenhouse at night. 

Jill Tracy photo by Michael Garlington

Jill Tracy is also returning to the studio with the legendary David J (Bauhaus), and her song "The Colour of the Flame" will be released as a 7" collector's vinyl shared with Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubauten/ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) for Swedish publishers Malört Förlag.

Jill Tracy performs in a custom 'Postillion' mini hat at The Edwardian Ball. (Photo courtesy of Audrey Penven)

For more information visit her official website at www.jilltracy.com.  Please follow Jill on Facebook and Twitter.

Custom Bridal: Elissa

I was very happy to have the opportunity to make this hat for a lovely bride recently. Her bridal outfit (which I hope to have photos of after the wedding!) was a 1890s-era style corset, jacket, and skirt made in black duchess satin with gray taffeta trim (all silk, of course), by Dark Garden Corsetry. I just love when the bridal couple wears color, and creates something really original and personal for their wedding day!

These are some quickie photos taken before sending the hat out the door. 

This is a 'Johnnie' style mini top hat, made in black long-nap fur felt.  As you can see, I've used the same gray silk taffeta from her dress to trim the hat and bind its edge.

The handmade flower was made using a heavy double-faced silk satin also used for the bride's jacket lining. The groom will wear a waistcoat in the same gorgeous blood red color. The peps chosen for the flower center, a shiny black, match the black patent leather buttons that decorate the bride's outfit.

 The hat also came with two sets of feathers (not pictured) that, when worn with the hat, mount behind the bow on its back. One set is a trio of curled black pheasant feathers, similar to the feathers seen on my 'Una' style. The other is two curled black peacock sword feathers, similar to the feathers on the 'Yvette'.

Look for more of the 'Johnnie' mini top hat in my new collection coming this fall!

Customer Photos / Custom Work: Megana and George

I just received these photos from Megana, a great regular customer who has bought several of my hats for herself and her daughter George.
George is pictured below wearing a Kit Kit mini bowler in long-nap fur felt with a cockade and feather spikes. She has enjoyed wearing it around the house and during a recent vaudeville-themed dance performance at school. I'm always so excited to outfit performers, especially such adorable ones.

And I recently completed the following custom hat for George's mom, Megana. Please excuse the fast-and-dirty quality of the photo- I needed to get this one out the door for a fast delivery so I didn't have time to take a proper studio photo. 

We designed this Vermeer cocktail hat to match an outfit Megana had custom made at Dark Garden, the trim was made using the same iridescent black/wine taffeta fabric as that she chose for her corset.

The rosette is made of layers and layers of pleated taffeta, alternating with black silk gazar, and frayed at the edges because Megana let me know that she likes texture. It also has black vintage crocheted veiling and a matching silk taffeta lining. I included several sets of feathers to wear with it, all matching the hat but totally different from each other so she can try out different looks- curled pheasant (seen here), fluffy wine-colored ostrich floss plumes, and others. I can't wait to see photos of how Megana looks in the whole outfit.

OK Spring, So Sprung Already

For the last few weeks I've been prototyping and making samples for my new spring / summer line. It's going well! Working up to the release of new styles always seems to take so long, but I'll have lots of new hats available soon, including several totally new hat shapes for men and women. I'm expanding my straw hat selection and my mens hat line this year, which is super exciting.

It's been kind of hard to think about making summer hats for blue skies and warm weather, given all the crappy rainy days we've had here in San Francisco lately. But, I'm looking forward to some new types of straw I'm adding to my line, especially the finely woven, high-quality panama straws I bought yesterday to add to my stock of materials. They are entirely hand-woven in Ecuador of natural unbleached straw. The texture, the weave and the color are just gorgeous. I could only get a limited number of them, so I'll be making a sample hat or two then saving the rest of the unblocked bodies for custom orders. If you want to see them for a possible custom project, just let me know.

Custom Order in a New Style

Shots of a currently-in-progress custom order for a customer in Seattle.

There's a lot of new stuff going on in these photos. This is a brand new style, a short top hat (traditionally known as a 'John Bull') I'm calling the 'Johnnie'. The style is part of my new Midi range- just smaller than a full size hat, but not as small as a mini, these hats look more like a full size hat on the head but are just perchy enough that sizing is not an issue (one size fits all).

The hat in these photos was made with a piece of the ultra-rare, 50+ year old long-nap felt I've collected. It feels and looks like silk plush, and has a softness and quality that are above and beyond any felt being produced today. Some of them, like this one, have a luminous sheen that's just made for top hats, it's really breathtaking. I have a stash of these in different colors available for custom orders, and almost all of them are one-of-a-kind pieces. Contact me if you're interested in finding out more about this amazing material.

I've started using this unusual type of ostrich feathers. Unlike most of the ostrich feathers you'll see elsewhere, these are long, slinky, and have wonderful drape and motion. These feathers were custom dyed to match the hat felt, with a mix of dyes that resulted in a beautiful variegated tone. I also dyed some peacock feathers using the same dye, but I haven't finished the trim to be made with those yet.

I love doing custom work, especially when it gives me the opportunity to try new things and learn new skills, and collaborating with my customers makes it extra interesting. Have any ideas for your own custom hat, or one for a friend? Just let me know.

Customer photo: Two Great Accessories

Here's Joanna from Australia wearing two always-chic accessories- a fake moustache, and a custom House of Nines Design chapeau. This one is a charcoal gray long-nap felt equestrienne-themed 'Yvette' top hat with black leather and metal trim.

 

 

First Custom-Shaped Hat

Just delivered the first hat custom-shaped with my conformer set, a Kingston fedora in charcoal felt with blue trim and vulturine feathers. Justin had been having no luck finding ready-to-wear hats that fit comfortably, but his conformed hat is a perfect fit. Justin was really happy with it, he's wearing it to the SF Opera tonight.

For those of you who missed my earlier post about this, the conformer (or conformateur) set is a fantastic and very rare 19th century machine used to customize a hat to the customer's exact head size and *shape*.  The fit of a hat is a lot like the fit of a shoe- to be worn comfortably (or at all), the hat has to be the correct size and shape for the head. Mass market hat companies make all their hats to an average shape, which means that they fit a few people well and everyone else not so well. Many guys think that they have trouble fitting into hats because of the sizing, when usually it's the shape that's the problem. I am super excited to now be able to offer custom shaping this special service to my clients. All that's required is for me to have access to your head once to take the initial measurements, then even long-distance clients can be assured of a perfect fit. I'm planning to have a special case made for the set, so I can take it with me and measure long-distance clients when I travel.

Who's next for a custom-shaped hat?

Custom hat: Delirious Cute

Photos of my latest custom creation, this one for a gorgeous burlesque artist from Australia. Made with vintage long-nap fur felt, dupioni silk, fur puffs, and lots of hand-set Swarovski crystals for sparkle.

I've found a stash of several of these ultra-rare vintage long-nap felts in several colors. Most colors are one-of-a-kind, but there are several more lavender similar to this, as well as gold, greens, purple, chocolate, etc. I'll photograph them soon, they'll be available for custom orders.

Oh Joy! My Conformateur

I've just taken a huge plunge and invested in something that's been on my 'fantasy hat making' list for a long time- a conformateur set. I love these tools because they'll provide me with the rare ability to shape a hat to a customer's exact head *shape* in addition to their size. Something all new hat makers come to realize pretty quickly is that heads come in so many individual shapes; mass-produced hats are generally made in only one shape (regular, or average, oval), but every person's head is different, which is why so many people have a hard time finding hats to fit. It's similar to mass produced clothing, where since very few people have the same proportions of the 'average'-shaped fit model, the resulting clothes fit most people somewhat / not great, but fit many people not at all, and fit only very few people very well. Fit in hats can be even more important than in clothing, because there is so little tolerance between a hat that fits comfortably and a hat that doesn't. Custom shaping gives a much better fit than relying on size alone, and is even more important in harder hats, like traditional top hats and some bowlers, which are so stiff they're not even really wearable without a proper fit. I'd love to start producing really nice, old-school full size top hats, so being able to provide custom fitting is crucial for me.

In terms of my yearning for a conformateur set, it also doesn't hurt that the set looks like something invented by Jules Verne! I've been actively searching for one in good condition for some time, with little success until now. They're quite rare to find, and almost never seen with more than one piece of a set together. I've never seen *any* pieces in such excellent condition before, have never seen or even heard of a full set being found all together before, and don't expect to again.



This system for providing custom shaping for hats was invented by a French company called Maillard in the 19th century. Mine was patented by an Argentinian company called Vega.



Here is a diagram of a typical conformateur.



Maillard's initial design was originally intended to be used in phrenology, (some silly people in the 19th century thought that the shape of the skull dictated personality traits), but the machine was soon re-engineered for use in hat-making (much more practical).

Here's how it works.

The piece that looks like a top hat made from piano parts is the 'conformateur'.
It is placed on the head like so, at whatever angle the customer likes to wear their hat (tilted forward, back, straight on, etc.):



Here's mine:



The levers that come down from the top are attached to little fingers inside that are gently pushed inward to touch the head all around its circumference. There is also a vertical ruler on the side, attached to a pad inside that touches the top of the head, to measure the height of the head. Here's what the inside looks like (held upside down):




Just for comparison, to give you an idea of why I'm so excited, conformateurs are usually found in pretty rough shape, more like this:



Or at the very least dirty, rusty, with a few missing or broken pieces. And who knows how much wear and tear to the mechanical parts on the inside that's not apparent on first glance.

While the conformateur is on the head, after the fingers are pressed in so that they are conforming to the head shape, a piece of paper is placed into a frame on the top of the machine. Little pins stick out of the top of the machine, each one attached to one of the fingers, so that the pins now reflect the head shape as well, but in miniature. The frame swings down on a hinge to press the paper into the pins, perforating the paper. In this photo, you can see that the inside of the frame is lined in cork, and there are little holes in the cork where the pins have pressed.



The perforations in the paper make a pattern that's a recording of the person's head shape.



The hat maker then cuts the pattern out with scissors along the perforations to store for future use. Here are some examples of the paper patterns. Because it's a shrunken version of the person's head shape, any bumps and asymmetry in the head shape (we all have them) are exaggerated in the pattern, as you can see here.



In the next step, the paper pattern is used to re-create the customer's head shape with a different tool, called a formillon.



Most of the time, high-end mens hat makers use band blocks, discs of wood made to a set of standard head sizes and shapes (the measurement of the customer's head; regular oval, long oval, or broad oval), at the end of the hat-making process to set the size and shape of the hat.



What the formillon does is to create a custom band block for the customer, on the fly whenever needed, using the paper template as a guide. As you can imagine, depending on the circumstances of the individual hat maker, storing custom band blocks for lots of customers could be prohibitive in terms of storage space, not to mention expensive to have them all custom made. And in any case, a really good way to get the exact head shape is needed to create a custom band block in the first place (this is even fiddlier and more difficult to do than it sounds), which points back to the conformateur. I love the idea of being able to use one formillon to do custom shaping for an an unlimited number of customers, and all you have to store is the one set of tools plus the paper patterns.

The formillon also has little fingers like those on the inside of the conformateur. They are mounted on a brass oval, and can slide in and out to expand and contract to make different shapes.



The screws that hold the fingers in place are tightened down with a key, like this one from my set. I've never seen an antique conformateur key before, only seen them in period illustrations.



To re-create the shape of the customer's head, the paper pattern is mounted in the center of a plot board. You can see the little oval in the center, where the pattern goes. I've never come across an antique plot board before this one I've just purchased, only seen them in the patent illustrations and old hat making manuals.



Then, the formillon is placed around the pattern onto the board, pushing the inside end of its fingers to touch the edges of the paper, like so:





Here's my formillon on my plot board.



Because the fingers of the conformateur and the formillon are calibrated to correspond to each other, the outside edge of formillon now mirrors the shape of the customer's head as measured by the conformateur. For the final shaping, the finished hat is slipped down over the formillon and takes on its shape.

I've just purchased this set from a dealer in Argentina and await its arrival anxiously. It was advertised as being in museum condition, very close to mint condition, so I'm hoping it won't need very much work to get it up and running properly. I'll send it out for a bit of repair if needed, then I'll be able to roll out custom shaping as an additional service to my customers. All I'll need is to be able to take a measurement of their head once, and from then on can custom shape hats for them, even for long distance / mail order sales. I plan to have a travel box made for the comformateur so that I can take it with me when I travel to different cities, taking measurements as I go along. The possibilities! I'm totally thrilled.

Customer Photo from Joanna

Here's another great photo from Joanna in Brisbane. She's wearing a custom-designed 'Belle Epoch' mini top hat, the first of many one-of-a-kind hats Joanna has commissioned from me.



She requested something in a navy, brown and black color scheme, with a touch of steampunk style, to go with an outfit she planned wear to a Mad Hatter themed tea party. I always enjoy working with Joanna, she has such great ideas and is open to collaborating, which is inspiring to me as a designer.

Be a Unique Bride

Here's another great customer photo, from Fiona in the UK. She's wearing a 'Belle Epoch' mini top hat in alabaster long-nap fur felt, with matching vintage veiling and a cockade in taupe, aqua and chocolate brown. I love the way the aqua ribbon she chose brings out the lovely color of her eyes.



Fiona's hat was a custom piece designed to match the color of her dress, but also incorporating her other wedding colors. The contrast adds pizazz and highlights the details in the hat's trim. She also wanted a little bit of a steampunk feel, so I finished the cockade with a centerpiece made from clock parts and a pearl button to match her jewelry.

I'm designing new wedding styles now, photos should be ready in a few weeks. In the meantime, I'm always available to discuss custom orders for unique hats like Fiona's, contact me directly for more info.

Carnival in Venice 2011 Photos

I've just returned from an amazing trip to Carnival in Venice, Italy. It was part adventure with good friends, part pilgrimage (Venice has been a major center of masquerade activity for close to 1,000 years, and Carnival is the mother of all costume parties), part lifelong-dream-fulfillment, and part 10-year wedding anniversary celebration for myself and my husband John. Traveling with close friends who are also costumers, designers and artists made the experience even more special. We started working on our costumes last fall, and during the last few months before our departure for Italy in late February, making outfits was pretty much ALL we did beyond the bare minimum of eating, sleeping, and work. We had a magical, amazing, fantastical time in Venice, and started planning our trip back for Carnival 2012 before we even returned to San Francisco. Venice is truly beautiful and fascinating, and we met so many amazing new friends - it was like summer camp for adult costumers. I can't wait to go back!

Here are a few pictures from our trip. There were too many great shots taken to include them all (thanks to the fine photography of Daniel and Steph). Unless otherwise noted, costume pieces were made by the person wearing them in the photo (or someone else in our group), or pulled from one of our closets (John's heavily-braided jackets were borrowed from another friend). With very few exceptions, all hats pictured were made by House of Nines Design (i.e. me), and all corsets and corset-jackets were made by the geniuses at Dark Garden Corsetry. We had great luck finding fabrics and materials at Burnley and Trowbridge Co., Renaissance Fabrics, Britex Fabrics, and Lacis.

Our household mascot of late has been 18th century painter Joseph Ducreux. Here John strikes a pose that says "Disregard photographers, acquire prosecco."


John got a lot of mileage out of his huge new Kevenhuller tricorn. Over the 10 days of Carnival, I piled more and more stuff and feathers all over my hats. I wanted them to be bigger and crazier everyday.


John in front of Harry's Bar. He normally wouldn't wear such enormous feathers on a bowler, but we figured: why not? It's carnival. Plus, the extra height made him easy to spot as we moved through dense crowds in the streets.


We spent part of almost every afternoon at Florian, the famous cafe that's been sitting pretty on San Marco square since 1720. It has incredible ambiance and history, with mural-painted walls and gorgeous furniture, not to mention being the main hang-out of serious carnival costumers. Here's Daniel lounging amongst the art.


A few days later, I re-shaped the same hat from the last photo into a bicorn, and was very pleased with the foxy results.


When planning what to make for and bring on the trip, as a group we agreed on a set of themes and a basic color palette (red, black, white, yellow and gray) for most of our outfits, so our wardrobes would coordinate but not be identical. That way, we wouldn't be too matchy-matchy, but we could share accessories and use pieces in different combinations to make new outfits. Here's Autumn, rockin' our color palette in a gorgeous 18th century gown at the Hotel Danieli on the Grand Canal.


And Steph in an incredible mantua and fontange. Steph, Autumn and Daniel brought Baroque-style (late 17th century) outfits, but I was surprised that so few other people at carnival tried that period. Maybe we should do more with it next year. (Costume: Past Pleasures Ltd.)


Since it was the first trip to Venice for most of us, we had to take a gondola ride. I was disappointed to find that nobody seemed to be using gondolas for actual transportation very much, it was all just tourists being taken in a big circle like a theme park ride. But it was still pretty great seeing the city from a very different angle. Autumn looked like a beautiful cupcake that day in her pink and white shepherdess dress.


The gondolas are works of art, and pretty romantic despite all the corny tourists. I half-joked about how many lottery tickets I'd buy after we got home, to be able to afford our own private gondolier to transport us around the city next year in style.


Another fun afternoon at Florian. This was my first attempt at a Marchesa Casati outfit (my hero!). As she famously said, 'I want to be a living work of art.' I'll be doing more to channel her next year.


Why was (almost) all food so delicious in Italy? Especially anything dairy or baked. It was uncanny.


With all the Victorian-themed events we attend in San Francisco (Edwardian Ball, Dickens Fair, etc.), a Victorianesque team costume was easy to pull together.


Here are a few pieces of the circus themed team costume we brought, hopefully we'll develop it more for next year.


Another fun thing to do in the afternoons at carnival is to attend one of the many lavish 'chocolates' hosted at fancy hotels around Venice. They have all-you-can-drink hot chocolate (the consistency of thick pudding, and so delicious) with special cookies and pastries. This one was especially fun, the hostess had set up 18th century card games for everyone to play. Our friend Erin met us there in full Gypsy Warrior Princess regalia.


One of the highlights of the trip was a Japanese Manga / 18th century themed party. I love a mash-up, and this one was especially fun to play around with. This was party number two (of three) of the evening, with complete costume changes in between.




Afterward, I sat on our private roof deck and watched the sun come up. There were a lot of late nights!


Another fantastic party we went to had a Turkish theme. We took photos on the roof before going to the party, as the host had requested 'no photography' at the event. Here's Steph, looking picture-perfect as always. She re-purposed the yellow pantaloons from a Victorian-era 'Bloomers' outfit she made for Dickens Fair last year, and built the rest of the outfit around them in gorgeous vintage fabrics.


I was surprised at how comfortable the Turkish pantaloons were to wear. On another day, I changed out the accessories, threw on a marching band jacket, and went out as a Zouve, which was super exciting because I hadn't even realized I had that costume with me till I was putting it all on. Giant pants may be my new go-to piece for next year.


When we initially found out about the theme of this party, we wanted to make outfits similar to a Turkish/French mash-up style that was popular with avant-garde ladies in the late 18th century. It didn't work out for the rest of us, but Autumn carried it off beautifully. Maybe next year we'll have another crack at it.


It's hard to believe, but the guys each wrapped their own turbans in about 10 minutes with little-to-no practice, and only a little help from YouTube. They look *fantastic*.



Needless to say, we're all tired, broke, and happy. And dreaming every minute about more carnival fun in 2012.