megan k. hughes

Fortune Wheel (2020)

Silver wire, bone-white silk dupioni, reversed sequin mesh, and cup chain diamante, with rhinestone straps and spikes, to remind the wearer not to touch. Matching cap is constructed of bone-white wool felt, silk dupioni and grosgrain ribbon, with diamante, rhinestone and silver stud trim. 
7Wx11H (inches).

For inquiries please contact the artist at mkhmillinery@gmail.com

For more about this artist, visit www.mkhmillinery.com

Artist’s statement

Who knows who you may meet while breaching the atmosphere? In 2120, we know style is an opportunity for ambassadorship. 

So much has changed since 2020, when we first connected with our interplanetary neighbors. Portals are now leading us to new places and peoples all the time. Thus far we have chosen function before fashion when travelling, but now we find that creativity in our spacewear is a bridge to cultural understanding.

This millinery stands out as uniquely human in a crowded transfer zone. In this silk, silver wire and diamante mask, and matching wool felt cap, the sensitive human scalp and air intake areas are protected from the cold conditions of space station meeting environments. The light-reflecting detailing and core styling of this otherwise practical travel design announce the elements of human creativity. 

Geometric, reflecting swirls of silk, wool and gleaming crystals encompass the wearer in atmosphere. The fine, opposable thumb handiwork, and combination of Earthmade textiles of Fortune Wheel, spark senses and open gates, even while you’re still docking. 

For more information, please holocall, or visit the website of MKH Millinery.

About the Artist

Based in Toronto, Megan Hughes is a continuous student of fine craftwork and textiles. Hughes studied millinery with David Dunkley in Toronto. She now designs and creates for her own label, MKH Millinery. Her work has appeared in various Canadian galleries and has been published in book format. Hughes’ commitment to ethical creation informs her process, from material sourcing to the end product.

Inspired by the environments of urban and rural Canada, Hughes creates with clean architectural lines and natural elements. Her imaginative and wearable millinery provides a conversational bridge between the processes of the inner mind and the practical needs of outer intentions, while adding beauty and interest to the scene. 

Recent exhibitions include London Hat Week in the UK and Palma Hat Week in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Feature

Megan Hughes was our featured artist for March 2-8, 2021. We will feature a new artist of the Babelmasks Ad-Hoc Collective each week.

10 questions

1. Can you talk a little bit about the development of your work for the Babel Masks show, Fortune Wheel? Did this work spark subsequent designs? Or was it a continuation of a series you have been working on?

My idea was to try to capture the uncertainty that was everywhere in Spring 2020, in the shape of a mask and matching hat. I was considering the many kinds of media messages we were receiving back then, when the lockdowns started. We began to wear masks at enforced levels, all in defense of a new and spiky-looking virus. That viral virus shape was being shown everywhere, and it meshed in my mind, blending with a feeling of imminent massive change, which could still be a tiny bit hopeful, with any luck.

The emotion reminded me of what it was like to watch a really excellent space movie, where every view and experience seems overwhelmingly new, and frightening, and exciting. I adapted those sensations and ideas to the mask shape and design, and then created the hat form, and embellishments, in order to complete the statement of ultimate defense, in this fashion-forward, hypermodern, futuristic style.

Without knowing much about the virus at the beginning of the pandemic, I felt that the concept of being prepared for an uncertain future was at the height of everyone’s most personal concerns, and that this mask and hat reflected both the mass fear of the unknown, and the icy magic of future possibilities. Since the launch of this project, and the publication of The Babel Masks catalogue, the concept of this show has inspired me to create a new millinery series, featuring Fortune Wheel, Variant B, along with a few other designs. I’ll be showing the new collection, featuring both couture and ready-to-wear pieces, this week on my Instagram page (@mkh_millinery ).

2. What are the steps for designing a hat or head adornment? Does it begin with color drawings, moving fabric and shapes on a form? What does that development look like?

Like any art, the process depends on some kind of initial inspiration. I am insatiably investigative, and like to focus on building on the positive elements that I find. I can be inspired by the shape of a rock, or by something I hear, just as easily as by a stunning landscape or world-altering event. The shape, feel, and colour of the thing moves me to follow its current.

When I design for other people, I really enjoy having even a short conversation about something they particularly love, so I can connect with their most positive energy. It’s important for me to fuse as much light and current into each piece as possible, to complement the wearer’s personality. The conversation about the hat is a wonderful collaborative moment, and it makes me so happy to work with others in this way.

Sometimes I twist paper or clay as a test base for the shape. On my forest walks I find with rocks that are perfect fascinator molds, or pockets of leaves that I study for silk recreation. I take notes and make rough skethes. I form a lot of ideas through those , as well as the collaging of textile elements. Fabric, colour, shape, dimension, and flow work together to create a light and balanced design. Each hat has a unique construction process. Millinery requires great patience, but this wearable sculpture is more than worth the effort.

3. Who are some of the milliners who inspired your work early on? How do you feel their influence in your work?

There are so many milliners, past and present, who have made incredible pieces. New designers are making absolutely stunning hats, and I find enchanting designs in vintage hats as well. North American milliners of the past, such as Bes Ben and Lily Dache, made beautiful half-hats. I love the chic hats coming from milliners today from every continent. I love hats that tell a story, and most do. When I was a child, A Ukrainian neighbor presented me with a gift: a lovely emerald velvet and felt traditional hat from her culture. I studied the colour and the trim for years. That gift opened my eyes to Canada’s richness of culture, and to the importance of neighbourly kindness.

Because I bonded with that green hat, I found hats to be approachable as an art form, and from then on I studied the construction of unusual hats whenever I could hold one. But the stores in my city seemed to only sell only common baseball caps or the functional camping hats stereotypical of Canada. I began to really ponder how to make my own hats that met my practical needs with style and personality of design. Any hat that sends a message from the wearer, makes me want to know who made it, and how. The best I’ve seen are true millinery pieces, technically accomplished head pieces that reflect the wearer’s dream.

The designers who inspire me connect people, events, and moments, to produce these special pieces, especially those who helped me understand my own perspective and style, and encouraged me to develop my unique millinery skill set.

4. What is the current sensibility in the world of millinery today? What aspects of the zeitgeist do you see milliners paying attention to? Do environmental concerns, the upholding or destruction of institutions, or emerging movements find their ways into contemporary design to speak to social currents, or does millinery tend to look to the fashions of the past?

When fashion aficionados talk about hats, the phrase, “statement piece,” is nearly standard across the world, I find. Throughout history to the present, hats have served functional and ceremonial needs while conveying a public statement of personality. Beyond practical concerns, hats can serve expressive and even political purposes. A recent example is the pink pussy hat, a direct assertion of the political as intensely personal.

Some hats are exquisite examples of delicate handiwork, and others are clean, bold, and fresh. In every case, the maker sought to release the energy contained in shape, form, colour, and meaning. The will to excellence in couture textile work of any medium, and the ability to gauge the egregore and follow new currents, are the threads that bind the milliners of history to those working today. Because this type of creation and expression is personal, and celebratory, milliners are tied to the spirit of the day, and to each other’s work over time.

5. Your website you say that your work is “inspired by Canadian environments” and also that it is “inspired by the wide range of Canadian sensibilities, both urban and rural, summer and winter, while paying homage to all of the spaces between.” Do you find your inspiration emerging in choice of fabric, textures, shapes, colors, or special events? Can you talk a little more about this?

Canada is such a special country, with unique landscapes of superlative beauty in every territory and province — and, on the flip side, extreme climates. Rural and urban citizens alike generally own several hats to fit the different parts of every season. From a well-worn winter toque to a summer shade, we personalize our hats; we even save and treasure them. Canadians are known to be endlessly enchanted by meteorology, which might seem dull, perhaps. But a well-trained and sensitive eye can spot differences in the light that various clouds filter, or the way a brook looks like a row of crystals in the sun.

The interplay of natural elements, the way they are always re-forming, are most inspirational. When I notice the curve of a beautiful tree, or the colours of spring blooms just emerging, I feel the need to crystallize the moment, to photograph the energy, if you will, in the form of a hat that will speak to where its inspiration was born.

For me, the emotional language of hats is as fully developed as the dialogue between nature’s landscape and the people within it. Amongst each province and even across the many corners of Toronto, there is a massive range of fashion sentiments to observe and understand. Living in such a large and diverse country, and inhabiting such diverse urban and rural environments, it is very easy for me to find inspiration in the cultural and natural energy in any part of Canada.

6. With your work Fortune Wheel, you have constructed not just a story, but an entire future world around your work in which this combination mask/hat fits perfectly. Do you often connect your work with narratives?

Every hat speaks volumes. Its expression may be imperative, poetic, or even epic. Hats are the punctuation that completes an outfit that gives cues to a person’s emotional state, level of comfort, social idiom, among other things, so the work contains a complex narrative.

I imagine a hat’s future as I make it. Millinery is a way of following material and intention to find the metaphor or story within each piece. For “Fortune Wheel,” the start of the story arrived in the form of the whole world’s fresh and nervous energy about the coronavirus, along with new rules about wearing masks. Masks seemed like such science-fiction to me then, and I was, at the time, also drafting patterns of masks and thinking about how long we would need them.

I formed a question: what would it be like to travel in space? To be in an environment that demands full physical protection and a means of signaling friendliness and interest to an alien being? Applying the vision of a truly new future to the nervous covid energy of everyone everywhere, I had to balance my thinking and consider the positive events of the era, for example our recent scientific discoveries.Seeking the balancing factor is imperative in millinery, in any art. There are many new and scary things happening, but there are just as many major accomplishments: fusion energy, CRISPR technology, quantum computing . . . we have reason to feel excited about the future, in spite of the virus. Of particular interest are recent experiments in space travel, the gaze toward Mars colonization. I feel so many new great narratives emerging, and I have an inkling that the world of Fortune Wheel may arrive sooner than 2120.

7. Did you come to millinery through study in some other medium, or has your focus always been on millinery?

I’m not entirely sure why, but I have always loved using my hands for complex tasks — folding things, turning pens in my fingers, playing instruments, typing, and sewing. On a school field trip I visited a pioneer log house and was deeply impressed by the fact that most objects there were made entirely by hand. Later I went to a Canadian history museum, where I got to study a trapper’s hat worn by a real voyageur. I was a tactile kid, always trying to undestand how and why things were made. At twelve I was known for my very tiny origami, and in high school I wore handmade outfits I made myself. Those were interesting times for me, fashion-wise.

Over the years I knitted several rounds of holiday hats for my accepting family, and I sewed some caps. When I moved to the city some time later, I found a small, but dynamic millinery scene, where I met some amazing like-minded people and I began learning. It is challenging and rewarding to create a perfectly fitted hat, and it takes a lot of experimentation. As a mindset, this work really appeals to my curious personality and busy hands. It is so rewarding, and relaxing as well.

8. Are there communities of milliners that stay connected with each other? How do you support each other professionally?

Before the pandemic I was connected with a wonderful network of milliners in Toronto. It’s been a while since we’ve all met in person, and I really look forward to seeing them, when we are able. Meanwhile, I have gotten involved in some online millinery networks, and have found great friendships with my peers. It’s wonderful that so many hat makers are showing their work on the internet, and are freely connecting with each other. I’ve been grateful for the ability to connect with milliners around the globe and admire their work online. Milliners are reflective and creative, and very pro-people. We want others to feel and look their best. Anyone who makes hats is conversant in emotional language, the connection between person and place that hats embody. So when we get together, we value each other’s perspectives, voices, skills and ideas. From the start of covid, the support and enthusiasm among milliners, worldwide, has been an incredibly positive force.

Anywhere there is a great hat, there is a milliner’s smiling energy as well. It is wonderful to be a part of this community of positive people who learn and grow together, persistently supporting and expressing artistic inspirations.

9. What is your usual schedule for a year of working? How has the pandemic reshaped or influenced your schedule and your practice?

Before the pandemic I was working in another designer’s atelier, while slowly building my own label. My annual routine was guided by events and seasons as I designed hats for people attending specific venues. Since the lockdowns and other measures to fight the virus have taken the lead, those events have largely been cancelled, or have moved online. Milliners everywhere have responded with their usual adaptability and concern for public comfort, and have turned to making masks as well as hats.

Making masks has been a fantastic way to pivot our talents: it has saved many milliners from liquidation. I have most definitely made my share of masks. All the same, no matter what the market conditions may be, I must make hats. Because millinery is my way of express and connect a feeling, I am always working on an artistic, couture hat, to reflect something that has inspired me, or to provoke me to do a photo shoot about the idea. One expressive artistic hat can eventually inspire an entire collection, or may become an element of a future idea. So I am happy to have a little more discovery time lately, though the practical challenges are certainly there. I’ve been spending more time online as well, sharing more of my work by developing my @mkh_millinery Instagram page, and my web store www.mkhmillinery.com .

10. If you could speak to an artist/milliner who is just beginning their study, what would you advise them? What do you wish you had known when you were starting out?

I would advise an interested beginner to first watch a millinery project video online, or find a book about the various parts of the processes that go into making a single style. It’s amazing how many hours, and how many types of skills, are needed to produce any kind of hat you can imagine. No single video, book, or teacher can share everything there is to know about millinery: there are always new dimensions to explore.

An intense interest in textiles, colour, and sculpture, leading to hat-making, often requires demanding physical tasks, so not being afraid of hard work and liking research is helpful.

Be ready to think like an inventor. It is good to seek new techniques and materials, but it is also important to develop foundational skills in manipulating materials such as silk, feathers, and straw.

A proper internship is absolutely the best way to learn, as hat-making is a tactile art with many special techniques which can only be learned over time.

Persistence is key when learning millinery. Starting with some lessons, online or in person, is a good way to discover if one’s interest in millinery is as satisfying as one’s individual admiration of hats. The millinery learning community is so kind, alive with positive feedback, and holding a multitude of creative individuals across the planet.The range of their artistic work is truly astounding and inspirational. Because every kind of hat requires a different skill set, and every technique takes time to master, the milliner’s study is happily endless.

With thanks to The Librarian of Babel, and the Head Librarian: /MKH