What do Isabella Blow, Valentino, Lady Gaga\u2014and most recently, Jonathan Anderson\u2019s Dior\u2014all have in common? They\u2019ve all been given the word treatment through famed milliner Philip Treacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cA hat is a mood. It\u2019s a feeling,\u201d Treacy tells me on the eve of the Dior Cruise<\/a> show. Last week, Anderson teased the Los Angeles-based presentation with a custom pair of the milliner\u2019s \u201cHat\u201d hats\u2014this time, proclaiming \u201cDior.\u201d Little did we know it was just the beginning of Dior\u2019s new hat vocabulary.<\/p>\n The famed word hat first started with Treacy\u2019s own couture line: In 2001, he got the idea to create a hat out of feathers that cheekily read \u201cHat.\u201d Made of Japanese Yokohama chicken feathers, each hat takes three days in total to sculpt, shape, bake, and assemble (Treacy\u2019s friend, the late designer Anthony Price<\/a>, raised the chickens and harvested the feathers for him). \u201cYou really get to know every single feather you\u2019re working with. You have to discover which feather will give you which letter; it all has to do with its spine. But every letter presents a different challenge,\u201d Treacy says of the overall experience. \u201cFeathers don’t levitate on the head on their own. Or very easily.\u201d<\/p>\n Victor VIRGILE\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n Photo: Shutterstock<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n It wasn\u2019t long before the Hat hat got its Vogue<\/em> debut. Britney Spears<\/a> was the cover of Vogue<\/em>\u2019s All-American November 2001 issue (the first issue produced post 9\/11), shot by Herb Ritts. Inside, the opening photo of the story was a black-and-white shot of the pop star wearing her very own Treacy word hat (commissioned by Anna Wintour), exclaiming her name.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, when Isabella saw Britney\u2019s hat, she was absolutely furious,\u201d Treacy reflects with a laugh. \u201cShe wanted Blow on hers, because she was doing a collaboration with M.A.C. and they designed a lipstick for her called \u2018Blow.\u2019\u201d The next year, Valentino Garavani asked Treacy to create a red hat with the brand name for his spring 2002 couture show<\/a>, and Karol\u00edna Kurkov\u00e1 wore it for the opening. The hat circled back in 2011 when Lady Gaga wore a slasher-font version of it on Jimmy Kimmel.<\/p>\n<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n
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