The first time that I met Marie-Louise was in her studio at the Silk Mill.
She had just moved to the area and was still in the midst of gathering her belongings from her old house in Luton. Her belongings were ample and overflowing from every nook, cranny, shelf and available surface. We chatted over a crowded table of hat boxes, feathers of all varieties and colours bursting in profusion from barely shut boxes. The scene was reminiscent of a scene from the old Acorn Antiques series, with Marie-Louise appearing from behind the toppling piles from time to time to emphasise a point or gesticulate gracefully towards some of her life’s work. Marie-Louise is a milliner with quite a collection of hats and a breath of experience behind her.
Born and raised in St.Albans, her father was a graphic designer for the Youth Hostel Association and by all accounts a rather snazzy dresser. Her mother too gravitated towards the finer things in life and Marie-Louise reminisces about an early love of textiles as she trawled the antiques shops and markets of Kensington, searching out Victorian costume and other exquisite items in the company of her enthusiastic mother. Educated in an all-girls school, Marie-Louise was told that she was not an academic and was left to a mediocre school experience, (undoubtedly alongside many other children who went on to prove their teachers wrong also). The school library was a sanctuary for her, and she spent much time with her head in a book. At the age of 11 she happened upon a fashion book entitled ‘Costume Calvalcade’ which transported her to a life and a world that she was far more comfortable with and would eventually inhabit. Also in her 11th year, her father (who had been forced to leave school at the age of 14 to look after his family and wanted more for his children) rebelliously took Marie-Louise and her brother out of school and took them on a tour of Europe. On this tour they spent a week in a Palazzo on the Grand Canal and she cites this experience as being a true awakening of her creative impulses.
When most school leavers are seeking out their futures in the bright lights of the city, Marie-Louise took up a job in an antiques shop and having lived in a 1920s house bursting with the treasures that her parents collected, it seemed like a home-from-home to the young Marie-Louise. She certainly had an affinity for antiques and it wasn’t surprising when she, at the age of 19, found herself visiting the V & A with a dress by leading Spitalfields designer Anna Maria Garthwaithe which she had picked up for £2 in a market. The V&A bought the dress for their collection and watched the young 19 year-old leave, only to return in later years to lead gallery tours in the famous London Museum.
Eventually the city called and Marie-Louise found herself studying at The London College of Fashion as she knew that they had a Dior milliner working there and wanted to study under them.. She achieved a fashion degree there. (She also went on to study her Masters too, not bad for a non- academic child). She describes her choice of career as ‘ridiculous, precarious and fanciful’ and knew that the path she was choosing would be difficult, but she could not be swayed. She imagined that along the road she might find sense and go work at Marks and Spencer or somewhere sensible like that, but thankfully that didn’t happen. She explains that it was an exciting time when she studied there, John Galliano was down the road and her good friend Murray Blewitt, now lead designer with Vivienne Westwood, would report back to her with news of the latest trends. She still remembers him reporting on the new ripped jeans craze. When I ask if she took fashion advice from him she laughs, and says that he would pop in to see what she was wearing each day, as she might just have been one of his muses.
Following that, she went on to work at the famous Berman and Nathans theatrical costumiers where she made hats for the likes of Blackadder, Superman and James Bond amongst others. Following that she went to work at Cosprop; from her description she paints a scene of a traditional hat makers, not too dissimilar to one that you might have seen back in the annals of history, where milliners sat around a table, making hats by hand in an austere badly lit atmosphere under the watchful eye of a severe boss. The work was hard, but the skills she learned there launched Marie-Louise’s millinery career.
She jokes that she had always dreamed of moving to Paris or Milan but ended up in Luton. She moved there as it was the hat-making capital of England – an industry not generally associated with the modern Bedfordshire town. At this time she got into teaching, millinery in Manchester Uni and demonstrating hat-making in the museum in Luton, she also did gallery tours at the V&A. She got a job for a fifth generation traditional hat-makers in Luton, where she worked in a purpose-built house and shop. She was fascinated by this set up and went on to buy a hat factory of her own.
Whilst most Luton milliners worked behind closed doors, Marie-Louise flung open the shutters and doors, displaying her beautiful hats to the world. A period of great success followed where her hats found their way into shops all over the UK, including John Lewis.
Fast forward a decade or so and Marie-Louise found herself in Frome visiting a friend. The rest as they say is history. Never before had she felt so at home in a place. Just a few years on and Marie- Louise is well settled into Frome life. It’s a joy to see her walking about town, exquisitely dressed from head to toe in the most beautiful outfits and always ready with a smile of welcome. Today she sits in De Hepe Interiors on Bath Street, our conversation peppered with exclaims of ‘I’ve sold the Venetian mirror’ and ‘What’s happened to the Bavarian bears?’ as Robin the shop owner delivers more curious and wonderful objects into the shop. Marie-Louise has come full circle, sitting amongst such beauty (her hats included) she tells me of her dreams for the future, perhaps a turn on the stage (something she dabbled in in the past), tours of Frome (I’d be first in the queue), and who knows what else….but whatever she decides, I’m sure it will be delightfully ridiculous, precarious and fanciful! Thank God she didn’t end up working for Marks and Spencer all those years ago!
To see Marie-Louise’s work visit her facebook page www.facebook.com /hatsbyMarieLouise
