SEASONS IN TIME - New Women's Winter Hat Collection

BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE …. Winter is here and lucky for you we have you covered !! with our newest women’s hat collection.

The House Of Hats has some amazing new Winter Style Hats in our Online shop to keeps you warm and looking fabulous all winter long.

Our Newest collection of Vintage Inspired hats inspired by the season in times of different eras from the 1920s- 1960s

We have four new hat designs available in luxurious fur felt in Winter shades, such as Forest, Smoke, Caramel and Ebony.

Like our ‘ Velvet Royale ‘ Pill box hat inspired by the 1940s and the glamour, a perfect after 5 cocktail hat worn tilted on the side slight forward or can be worn on the back of the head for a more 60s feel, so versatile the choice is yours !

Our ‘ Baby it’s Cold Outside’ Fur Felt turban is a 60s dream hat, perfect for everyday to keep your head warm, this classic style will be your winter staple hat.

Our ‘ Season’s Fur Felt Beret for the beret lovers out there, the perfect side that sits elegantly on the side of the head for a true french parisenne style.

Our ‘ Time After Time’ Tilt hat will transform you back to the late 1930s , teamed with a felt art deco hat pin, you will defiantly turn heads with this hat.

And last but not least our ‘ Doves’ cloche hat , inspired by the 1920s in the perfect dove grey for all you cloche lovers out there.

These are all available Ready to ship now in our Online Hat Shop or can be custom made in any colour you choose,

Stay Warm and Fabulous….

Our ‘ VELVET ROYALE ‘ Tilt hat is a luxurious hat perfect for after five.

Hand made on a vintage hat blocked and covered in the most beautiful vintage gold flocked velvet , and lined in black satin and vintage gold petersham ribbon.

Attaches to the head with two comb and some millinery elastic.

Wear our ‘ VELVET ROYALE ‘ Tilted on the side or on the back of your head.

The perfect finishing touch to any cocktail outfit or any occasion.

Our ‘ BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE ‘ Turban is the perfect winter hat to wear everyday.

Hand blocked on an original 1960s wooden hat block into the most perfect turban hat

that sits snug onto your head for that cold winter days..add your favourite winter coat and your ready to go…

Available now in Forest but can be made to order in other colours.

Our ‘ TIME AFTER TIME ‘ Tilt Hat in the most beautiful soft caramel colour perfect for winter.

Hand blocked on a vintage wooden block into the perfect 40s style tilt hat that is worn on the side of the head,

Finished with a vintage tortoise shell buckle on the back and a handmade felt hat pin in caramel and brown.

This hat is one size and has a comb on the inside to attach to the head, and also the hat pin to secure.

Our ‘ SEASONS ‘ felt beret is a classic style that can be worn everyday to dress up any outfit.

Hand blocked on a vintage wooden block from the most luxurious fur felt in a smoke grey into the perfect beret that sits effortlessly on the side of the head.

Our DOVE Cloche is a Beautiful 1920s vintage style cloche made from the highest quality fur felt in a dove grey colour way and is hand blocked on an antique wooden hat block
using traditional millinery techniques and meticulously sculptured into the perfect everyday cloche hat.

Designed to fit snug and close fitting onto the head and coming down longer on the side.

Delicately finished with an original 1920s celluloid buckle in yellow & white with rhinestones with a matching dove grey grosgrain ribbon around the crown featuring matching hand stitched yellow thread

We hope you all enjoy our new hat collection all available in our online shop & Sydney Hat Shop/Showroom

All our hats are handmade in our Sydney hat studio and are 100% Australian made using the highest quality locally sourced materials.

Thank you for supporting our small business & don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with our New Arrivals, sales and news.

Much Love…

Your Milliner

Ilana x

BIBA Fever back to 1969 London

Biba Fever 

Biba was a London fashion store of the 1960s and 1970s.  Biba was started and primarily run by  the Polish-born Barbara Hulanicki with help of her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon.

Biba's early years were rather humble, with many of the outfits being cheap and available to the public by mail order. Biba’s postal boutique had its first significant success in May 1964 when it offered a pink gingham dress with a hole cut out of the back of the neck with a matching triangular kerchief to readers of the Daily Mirror.  The dress had celebrity appeal, as a similar dress had been worn by Brigitte Bardot. By the morning after the dress was advertised in the Daily Mirror, over 4,000 orders had been received. Ultimately, some 17,000 outfits were sold.

Hulanicki worked as a fashion illustrator after studying at Brighton Art College inthe late 1950s. She married advertising executive Stephen Fitz-Simon and they soon opened a mail order clothing company that she named Biba's Postal Boutique. Biba was the nickname of her younger sister Biruta.

The first store, in Abingdon Road in Kensington was opened in September 1964.

Hulanicki’s first encounter with her new customers was at 10 o’clock on theSaturday morning it opened; "...the curtains were drawn across the window…the shop was packed with girls trying on the same brown pinstripe dress in concentrated silence. Not one asked if there were any other styles or sizes," Hulanicki remarked.

The brown pinstripe dresses were being stored in the shop because Hulanicki’s apartment was overflowing with boxes of clothes for their mail order service. Fitz-Simon dropped Hulanicki at the shop and went to pick up more dresses, Hulanicki went to the bathroom and when she came back the shop was packed. "The louder the music played the faster the girls moved and more people appeared in the shop. I had sold every dress by 11. After the last dress had been sold, people were still lining up inside waiting for the next delivery.

The shops' main appeal was what was seen on TV on Friday night could now be bought on Saturday and worn that night. As the Biba style (tight cut skinny sleeves, earthy colours) and logo became more and more recognisable, themore and more people wanted to be seen in it.

The second store at 19-21 Kensington Church Street opened in 1965 and a series of mail-order catalogues followed in 1968, which allowed customers to buy Biba style without having to come to London.

n 1973 with the backing of Dorothy Perkins and British Land , the store moved to the seven-storey Derry & Toms  department store, which immediately attracted up to a million customers weekly, making it one of the most visited tourist attractions in London.

There were different departments, and each floor had its own theme, such as a children's floor, a floor for men, a book store, a food market, and a "home" floor which sold items such as wallpaper, paint, cutlery, soft furnishings and even statues. The overall design was produced by Whitmore-Thomas Partnership, run by artist/designers Steve Thomas and Tim Whitmore.[Each department had its own logo or sign, which was based on the Biba logo and had a picture describing the department. These were commissioned by Thomas and Whitmore and designed by Kasia Charko.

The store had an Art Deco-interior reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood. and non-traditional displays,  Barbara Hulanicki and her husband Simon Fitzsimon have spent £1m refurbishing the Art Deco department store - known as Big Biba - to house her idiosyncratic collection of clothes and accessories.

The Biba Food Hall was also designed ingeniously, each part being aimed at one particular kind of product; a unit made to look like a dog (based on Hulanicki's own dog, a Great Dane named Othello)  consisted of dog food; a huge baked beans tin can consisted of only tins of Baked beans; a can of "Warhol's  Condensed Soup" etc., all foods having individual innovative units. Also at the new "Big Biba" was "The Rainbow Restaurant", which was located on the fifth floor of the department store and was destined to become a major hang-out for rock stars, but which was not solely the reserve of the elite. With all of these renovations and additions, Biba became known as a "theatre for fashion."Also at the site was the Kensignton Roof Gardens  which are still there today.

The move to Derry and Toms in 1973 gave a much needed boost to other more conventional department stores in a lacklustre Kensington High Street suffering from recession.
Dorothy Perkins bought 75% of Biba taking it from a loss of £40,000 to a profit of £300,000.Biba was a victim of the same recession and only survived for two years before closing in 1975.

It seemed people wee happy to come and see the impressive decor and designer goods but were more reluctant to buy.

Barbara Hulanicki moved to Beazil in 1975 and in 1983 she published a book about the Biba enterprise called A to Biba in which she blamed British land forthe demise of the store by running it down to save other parts of its empire.

Twiggy Modelling for Biba 1971

Twiggy Modelling for Biba 1971