Here are some images of our all-black mini top hat with half veil. Photo by Kani Honu Photography. Model is Katherine Ripley. Taken at the Schwetzingen Gardens in Germany. You can see the whole set here: http://gallery.kanihonu.com/index.php?album=katherine-ripley-schwetzingen-gardens-germany





Here are some recent bridal photos as well!

The first is Kristina in a white birdcage veil with satin roses:


And this is Evonne in a retro 50s dress and a custom ivory fascinator with a hand-sewn ribbon rosette:





As always, we greatly appreciate our customers sharing their photos with us! We always love to see you in your hats!

Recently our hats have graced the heads of several different performers, across the spectrum of dance.

Here's a custom purple fascinstor made for a modern dance troupe in Canada:



The photo was taken at Berkeley Church, Toronto, by Greg Tjepkema, www.gregthephotographer.com. The group's Artistic Director is Robin Bleasdale (dancefusiondirector.blogspot.com), and the troupe can be seen at www.dancefusion.ca. Also on youtube; www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcDYf5GsPiI
Their event planner is Alison at www.ahotpinkpetticoat.blogspot.com

And here's burlesque artist Ms. Rachel Riot during a performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" wearing a big, custom fascinator I made for her. The photo is fuzzy because I didn't want to use a flash and blind her while she was on stage. Hopefully some of the pro pics will come out better!



See more of Rachel at www.myspace.com/chechelangel

Last weekend I had fun shooting with photographers Magnus Hedemark and Chris Peters. They were kind enough to take some great shots of my most recent steampunk costume (the pattern is Butterick 4954). I'm still working on some detail of the parasol. The hat is also from a line of somewhat larger mini top hats that I'm about to list in my etsy store (joeireedhats.etsy.com). This hat does have a detatchable full birdcage veil, but I left it off for this shoot because it was quite windy. The other model, Lilluanu, is modeling another of those larger mini top hats in black.


Photo by Chris Peters


Photo by Magnus Hedemark


Photo by Magnus Hedemark

Sometimes our customers aren't really brides, but they play them in photoshoots. Here's Jaclyn in the ivory version of our birdcage veil. Photo is courtesy of Jaclyn Michelle Modeling at http://www.modelmayhem.com/1063343 and MEK Photography at http://www.mekphotography.com/

We hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day! I'll be attending the Clockwork Ball (http://www.myspace.com/theclockworkball) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I'll be handing out heart-themed hair pins to the steampunk girls in attendance. A lucky few will get special "mechanical heart" hair pins, decorated with watch gears and covered with a polymer glaze. I've started making these decorated hair pins, with many shapes and colors of adornment (hearts, stars, bows, ghosts, bats, etc) as thank-you items. One is included in every hat order!

Here's one of our bridal customers who decided to go with a traditional white dress, but with all-black accessories. She looks fantastic!

I created this hat for a friend's anti-holiday party, but ya gotta admit, after a while all those carols start getting to you wherever you go! This hat lets me take a break from all the cheeriness. It's a black satin santa hat trimmed in black marabou, with a hand-crafted skull and crossed candy canes. The decoration is hand-cut and sewn from felt.

A lot of brides are foregoing the traditional white these days. One of our customers was wearing a lovely dress in silver-gray, and carrying pink roses. We came up with a design for her of a gray birdcage veil, topped with a pink rose to coordinate with her bouquet. The rose sits atop a ribbon rosette made of textured pink fabric, and it's surrounded by glittery silver beads I found for her that coordinate with the spacer beads in her necklace. The last image is a self-portrait by the bride to be displayed in lieu of a photo on her wedding day! We're always thrilled when our customers share their photos with us.

Mike Moon, the artist behind Catgirl Island, was nice enough to feature me on his blog, Media Mewsings, this month. Look at it here:
http://mewsings.wordpress.com/

I'm at the very end of the page!

Here's another of our lovely bridal customers. As you can see, she's chosen to wear her birdcage veil off to the side. As I tell all our bridal customers, there's no wrong way to wear your veil!

We have a BUNCH of new combs just listed in the online store at http://joeireedhats.etsy.com. These combs give you a nice flower and a little veiling for your hair, without being as much as a hat. Great for the pinup girl look! And most of these combs are just $10!

Here's one example:


We also have a new style of comb with a fan of veiling:

Stephanie Freese is an amazing cartoonist and illustrator who does a Web Comic called the Dada Detective. You can find her strip at http://likelystories.com. Some of her collections feature a story called Chocolypse Now, which is the story of Willy Wonka as per Apocalypse Now, and you can imagine how amusing it is. Stephanie's art was featured in the News and Observer earlier this year as part of a show at Chapel Hill Comics. When Stephanie attends conventions and expos, she's been known to wear some of our hats. She owns two - the first is a black fascinator with a vintage millinery rose in iridescent purple, with hand-fixed purple rhinestones, and a spray of black and purple eyelash feathers. The second is a mini top hat adorned with a band in patterned shades of gray and silver, with a veil and a puff of silver tulle, and a white cameo button at the back.

Here's Stephanie at the Small Press Expo in her two hats, with close-up photos of the hats themselves:

At ZombieCon 1 and 2, cartoonist and illustrator Thomas Boatwright was signing prints. His lovely girlfriend Jocelyn now owns two of my hats. Jocelyn has a green hat with brown and white polkadots, and this time she got a black hat with burgundy feathers and a full birdcage veil.

Here she is:


Thomas does some fantastic artwork, and was amazingly nice enough to give me a signed print of his piece "Afternoon Tea." Check out more about Thomas at http://boatwrightartwork.blogspot.com/ or at http://boatwright.deviantart.com/



(This image of Thomas's piece is posted with his permission.)

The nice folks from Zombie Con invited me back for their second convention, and it was a lot of fun. I got to hang out with Vera van Munster, the Vixen of Horror, and singer and pinup model Miss Kitty King. Vera and Kitty did a little modeling for me of my new witch hats. I'm lucky I got the hats back from them! :) They looked super and I was glad to see the hats on them!

There is no reason that a witch can't also wear her hat tilted at a rakish angle. For those fashionable witches, we have created some mini tilt hats in witchy style. You can find them at http://joeireedhats.etsy.com. There's still time for them to be shipped for Halloween!

Our fashionable witch hats are inspired by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. They take their concept from the glamorous witches in line at the book store, although none of our witch hats are direct replicas of any hats.

(Thanks to Vera van Munster and Miss Kitty King for modeling, and to Jayce Williams for the photos. See more about Kitty at http://www.myspace.com/kittykingdammit, and Vera at http://www.myspace.com/vixenofhorror)

I had a number of autumn brides this year, and a popular Fall color scheme was chocolate brown and burgundy. Here's one bride who chose an ivory feather pad and a birdcage veil in ivory without dots. For adornments she got one of our limited-availability feather flowers in dark brown, to which I attached a spray of burgundy pearls to the center. She looks lovely!

I had such a good time at the last Zombie Con (pics from which you can see further down in the journal) that I'm pleased to announce that they've invited me back! If you will be in the Chapel Hill, NC area on Saturday, Oct 25, come on by! I'll have some items, including some Harry Potter-inspired witch hats, just in time for Halloween that will not be posted in the online store!

ZombieCon 2
One-day horror con in Chapel Hill, Oct 25 (Sat)

Time and Place Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008
Time: 9:30am - 5:00pm
Location: Sheraton Chapel Hill Hotel
Street: One Europa Drive
City/Town: Chapel Hill, NC
Contact Info Phone: 9199684900
Email: http://www.myspace.com/markscons

Exactly the horror gathering you've been looking for! Everything you need for a gore-filled, brain-eating, good time! Admission is only $5.00!!!

Great prizes for contests including best horror tattoo, best costume for adults AND kids, casting call-win a film role!

Killuride Horror Film Festival (7pm-Midnight)

Brain Jello Wrestling!

Horror Collectibles, Toys, Clothing, Comics, and MUCH MORE!!!

GUEST LIST INCLUDES...

Theresa Bane-Discovery Channel's Vampirologist

Vera Van Munster-Horror Pin-up Model and Scream Queen

Kitty King- Pin-up Model and Vocalist for Kitty King and the Whistling Skulls

Jason Griscom-Director of "Come Get Some"

Brockton McKinney-Director of "Sick & The Dead" and crew

Photography By Sara-Horror Gallery

Thomas Boatwright-"Cemetery Blues"

Ormon Grimsby- Host of "Monster Creature Feature"

Michael Renegar-Ghost Chaser & Author of "Roadside Revenants"

Phoenix Mangis-"Southern Undead: Attack of the Redneck Zombies"

G. Warlock Vance- Author of "The Missing Narrative of Neptune"

Mark Carter-Illustrator, Sculptor

Mark Rainey-Co-Author of "Dark Shadows Dreams of the Dark"

L. Jamal Walton-Creator of "Warmageddon"

A bride recently had me make a mini top hat for her Alice in Wonderland wedding. The top hat was pink and I adorned it with a veil that wrapped over the top of the hat, with long white biot feathers, a puff of blue marabou feathers, a hat band of white and blue checked ribbon and a custom-made two-tiered ribbon rosette in blue and white with a pink pearlescent button at the center. She had a lovely wedding and it looks like she had a great time! Thanks to all of our customers who send us photos! We love to see you in your hat!

Here are a couple of pictures from outside the NY Burlesque Festival. This is one of my own dresses, and I made the hat to go with the dress. It uses a two-color feather pad in black and red, a red birdcage veil, a fan of custom-sewn material in the same cherry print as the dress, a resin cherry cluster, and black and red biot feathers.

If you go to the festival, the show is awesome, but spring for the VIP tickets! The rest of the show is standing room only and it's impossible to see.

I ran into the group from White Lightning Burlesque out of Tennessee, whom I know because they've performed here in NC. If you get a chance, go see them! Not only are they a great burlesque troupe, but they are also great singers!

This hat was made for one of our customers to wear at Otakon as a kind of cross between an anime and a steampunk outfit. She wore it with brass colored cat ears and got called Steam Cat for the entire con. She wanted a mini top hat with a band in dark gold, covered in black lace. Interestingly, she wanted a peacock feather stuck into a rifle casing on the side. We added a few black eyelash feathers to the peacock feathers, and a pleated underveil in matching black lace. The photos show her wearing the hat at Otakon in Baltimore at the harbor!

Here's a closeup of the hat: