This year Cheltenham had its very first fashion week founded by Sam Bawden. I was honored to be selected to take part in the 'Who wants to be a milliner?' competition at Cowley Manor Hotel. The grounds of the hotel were so beautiful and the giant pink shoe outside really set it off! The event was organized by Denise Innis (founder of the British School of Millinery) and Fern Berreen (founder of The Gloucester Hat Festival).
The task: Ani Townsend, Catherine Povey and I were all given the same set of materials in black and pink (the Cheltenham Fashion week colours). We only had a few hours to make our creations (3pm till 9pm). From around 8pm we had an audience of 60 people watching us and asking us questions as we went along. It was great fun and I have never done anything like it. We were allowed to add two of our own 'ingredients' (it really was like Ready-Steady-Cook) and the Audience were to later judge us by holding up coloured cards. We finished our hats while the guests enjoyed a three course dinner.
Before showing them our finished hats we had a catwalk show of all of our collections followed by the competition hats showcased on the gorgeous models (as seen n the pictures below, mine is on the left, Catherine's in the middle and Ani's on the right ) ready to be judged! I was yellow, Ani Townsend was blue and Catherine Povey was red. We had to go out of the room as the guests held up their cards.......It was surprisingly nail biting and a bit strange, I have never been judged by a crowed like that before! The most cards held up were red (for Catherine), then Yellow (for me) and blue (for Ani), 1st, 2nd & 3rd! I thought Ani was going to win with here really contemporary design using coloured cellophane and metallic nail varnish. It just goes to show you never can tell! Which one would you have picked? We all had such a laugh doing it and we were all interviewed for Chelltenham TV (I'm hoping to get a clip of that soon).
The next day we held a pop up boutique in the hotel called 'Atelier Chapeaux' showcasing our hats and those of three other designers. We had lots of visitors having fun trying on hats and gaining inspiration for next years race meets.
Oh I nearly forgot to mention, our competition hats were later auctioned off for the 'Hop Skip and Jump' children's charity, which Elizabeth Hurley is president to. She came along for the auction event and was photographed by the very same giant shoe which all the papers enjoyed splashing the next day.
A lot of fun had by all! Bring on Cheltenham fashion week 2013!