Faculty - American Institute of Millinery Education

Faculty – virtual school year 2022-2023 (September-June)

BEVERLEY EDMONDSON – United Kingdom

Beverley established Beverley Edmondson Millinery in 2008, growing quickly from a spare bedroom to a high street boutique in 2010 and building a loyal following.

Her work has been featured in the national and international press, The Royal Ascot Style Guide, and at Royal weddings amongst others. She has also designed and created wholesale collections for major high street brands and stocked in Fenwicks of Bond Street.

Clients are the inspiration for most of Beverley’s designs, carefully listening and fulfilling their needs, designing hats for each individual, personality and stature. She has built a business based on exceptional customer service.

Beverley is an ambassador for the British Millinery Association and a Member of the British Hat Guild.

Beverley is also the creator of the Milliners Planner and offers mentoring and business training for milliners looking to take their millinery business to the next level.

AMY FOWLER– United States

Amy Fowler pursued hat making as a hobby until 2016, when she left her career in operations and e-commerce to pursue millinery full-time. She completed an online millinery certification course with Hat Academy in 2017 and the Millinery Intensive summer course at London College of Fashion in 2018 and was awarded the Victor Thomas Jacoby Artist Grant in 2019.

Amy’s bespoke millinery is sold under the brand Millinery by Amy Fowler. All designs are 100% handmade by Amy and are one of a kind. Her style is artistic yet wearable, with emphasis on sculptural design. She enjoys developing new approaches to traditional and contemporary materials.

A love of millinery and desire to expand her skills and studio were the driving forces behind Amy starting her own millinery supplies business, Humboldt Haberdashery, in 2014. Her mission is to provide an environment to encourage the development of all levels of skill, while providing convenient, relatable access to knowledge and materials. Humboldt Haberdashery carries an ever-growing range of blocking materials, veiling, feathers, and trims, as well as pre-made hat bases of varying styles and materials.

As a valued member of millinery community, Amy also contributes to HaTalk EMagazine, is a Professional Member And Treasurer Of The Milliner’s Guild USA and Professional Member Of The Millinery Association Of Australia.
Amy studied Millinery And Fashion Accessory Design At London College Of Fashion 2018, and received numerous millinery awards. Amy lives in McKinleyville, California, five hours north of San Francisco in Humboldt County, by the Pacific Ocean and Redwood forests.

https://millinerybyamyfowler.com/

LEANNE FREDRICK – United States

Leanne Fredrick is a millinery educator with international teaching experience and feature articles in The Hat Magazine. After a decade living in London and learning millinery under the expert eyes of the quintessential couture London milliner, Edwina Ibbotson and master theatrical hatter, Jane Smith, Leanne has recently returned to her native California. Her enthusiasm in collaborative learning creates a rewarding experience for all.

Since her start in millinery, Leanne has enjoyed working on a variety of unusual projects. This ranges from sewing helmet feathers for ‘Her Majesty’s Body Guard, the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms,’ to making authentic millinery poupées, to designing durable hat cases. While she currently focuses on teaching and making, Leanne has also been the European Manager for B Unique Millinery, which gave her valuable insights into the supply business of millinery.
In June 2020, Leanne was delighted to wake up with her picture on the front page of The Times, a major London newspaper, of her preparing for ‘Royal Ascot at Home’. Hats designed and handmade by Leanne have been recognized in hat competitions including V&A Inspired By: and the Bridport Hat Festival.
Hattin’ Around, Leanne’s website, offers a series of blog posts starting in 2015 and covering a diversity of topics such as a podcast interview with Jane Smith, an article on the first London Hat Week, to her experience buying a Wilcox & Gibbs straw stitch sewing machine circa 1880.
www.hattin-around.com

NICOLE GILLIES– United States

Nicole Gillies is a Michigan-based textile and fiber artist. She is an alumnus of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit where her focus was the Fiber Arts, more specifically felting and corset making. She has a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and works as a Children’s Librarian, sharing her love of art with her children and the young people of her community. She is a ravenous felter and owner of Roving Eye Textiles, making beautiful flowers, vessels, and Nuno scarves for galleries and art festivals in the Detroit area.

ROSE HUDSON– Australia

Rose Hudson celebrates forty years in millinery this year. Her experience covers TV, film, opera, ballet and includes work exhibited in the National Gallery of Victoria, the Maritime Museum of New South Wales and Flinders University in South Australia. In her millinery studio, she has created headwear (amongst other things) for Essie Davis in ABC TV’s Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Kate Winslet and the cast of The Dressmaker (2015), The Australian Ballet’s productions of The Sleeping Beauty (2015) and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2018). She recently completed work on the feature film Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears. She made headwear for the film Winchester (2018) and head wear and masks for TV series Preacher (2019).
Rose is the owner of The Very Very Very Strict School of Millinery, where she teaches her students traditional skills of hand blocking and sewing.
In 2018 Rose and a business partner launched The Hat Blockers, a business that produces well-made wholesale machined blocked shapes for milliners. The ready to wear millinery market didn’t have a quality product milliners could easily source, so The Hat Blockers was born. Rose is kept very busy keeping up with the orders for top hats, fedoras, berets, and pillboxes.Rose also teaches costume accessory construction and theatrical millinery at Melbourne Polytechnic in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran. In 2018 and 2019, Rose taught felt manipulation classes at Fibre Arts Australia convention in Ballarat, Victoria. She taught trimming techniques at MIMC Convention in February of 2019. Rose presided over Millinery Association of Australia between 2016 and 2018, overseeing the operations of this not for profit organization to encourage hat-wearing for aesthetic and sun protection purposes, to maintain high standards of millinery manufacture in Australia and to promote friendship and cooperation among industry members. Although challenging at times, Rose and her committee achieved some outstanding results for the members, including securing world-renowned milliner Stephen Jones as the Patron of the MAA. The membership of the Millinery Association of Australia numbers 170 people. Rose considers looking after their wellbeing one of the most rewarding periods of her working life. In July won the 2019 MAA’s Design Award with her piece ‘Prelude to a Kiss’, in which a series of faces, sculpted in Foss shape and covered in three shades of leather were mounted in profile, to form a crown like head piece, which perfectly fitted the competition’s ‘Chiaroscuro’ theme. At the same Gala evening, Rose was thrilled to become the 2019 recipient of the Hall of Fame, an honour bestowed by the current committee for notable work in the millinery industry and MAA achievements.

JANET LINVILLE – United States

Janet has been a professional milliner since 1979, when she started working for the ‘new’ casinos in Atlantic City. Millinery as a career wasn’t even a thought for Janet, as she’d never made a hat before. Janet’s boss thought otherwise and that she ‘the touch.’

Janet moved to New York City and worked with the late, great Woody Shelp, the person who taught her the most and to whom she feels she owes the most. Woody was incredibly tough, but still a very encouraging mentor. At the time, there were no millinery classes in NYC, so Janet created her own apprenticeship by becoming a millinery hobo! She worked anywhere from high end to mass market fashion, contract pattern making, and all sorts of theatrical millinery- Broadway, off-Broadway, ballet, circuses, TV, and movies.

Janet started teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1987 and opened her own studio in 1990, mostly making theatrical millinery. In 1996, Janet closed her studio to become the milliner for the Metropolitan Opera where she oversees the making and acquisition of hundreds of hats each season.

Janet is very proud of her ‘crazy quilt’ of a career and think sit has made her a better and open -minded milliner. Janet loves what she does – from the practical to the wacky, she considers it a privilege and a responsibility to honor all of her mentors by sharing with her students.

CAROLE MAHER – Australia

Carole started her millinery training in England with Rose Cory and at the London College of Fashion before graduating from Sydney Institute of Fashion Technology as a qualified Couture Milliner. She is currently an International Millinery Tutor and Lecturer. She has pioneered the global introduction, research, development and distribution of new thermo-formable materials in the millinery and the fashion industries. She is a regular Visiting Lecturer & Tutor at The Royal College of Art, London. She also delivers regular millinery workshops at London Hat Week and HatWeek Australia and Millinery Masterclass workshops in London, Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Asia, Canada and America, as well as at her own studio. Carole is an award-winning and well-established millinery designer with her own Atelier in Sydney, NSW. Australia. She has recently hosted the first Millinery Salon for Harrolds featuring her own Couture Millinery along with Stephen Jones Couture. She is also a millinery features writer for the Hat Magazine.
Carole is very passionate about innovation, development and education in millinery and actively pursues this, she has been a trailblazer for many millinery tutors internationally.
carolemaher.com.au
FB carole maher
Insta: thesydneymillineryco

JENNY ROBERTS – United Kingdom

Jenny is a milliner from the UK with over 20 years fashion styling and millinery experience. Her designs have featured on the front page of ‘The Times,’ in ‘Vogue’s Top ‘Ascot’ hats, ‘Marie Claire’ and the ‘Daily Mail,’ and she has also featured in ‘Tatler’ as ‘the Best Milliner in Yorkshire, UK.’

Jenny started her label in 2006 after working for many retailers including the design team at ‘Debenhams.’ She completed her HNC training in Millinery in 2006 having previously gained a 1st Class Honours in ‘Fashion and Textiles Management.’ She loves the challenge of creating unique headwear which both enhances her clients look and makes them feel fabulous. In 2015 Jenny launched ‘The School of Millinery.’ She offers tuition in all aspects of millinery from her studio in Harrogate, UK as well as virtually via zoom. She teaches to the highest standard for hobby and professional milliners and caters for all abilities.

She has many years of experience in designing, making and teaching millinery and is thrilled to have taught at the ‘London Hat Week,’ for ‘The British Millinery Association’ and now for ‘The American Institute of Millinery’ and well as being an instrumental part of the Education Committee for ‘The British Hat Guild.’

Jenny says, ‘I am passionate about inspiring students to explore the possibilities of millinery and to create something unique and original, taking students from makers to designers. I am honoured and thrilled to be joining ‘The American Institute of Millinery,’ faculty and can’t wait to share my courses with its members.’

LAURA WHITLOCK – United States

Laura Whitlock fell in love with millinery as a student of costume design. There was something about the sculptural nature and human scale of hats that she found endlessly appealing. As a milliner and costume crafts artisan, Laura’s work has graced stages from San Diego’s Old Globe to The Lyric Opera of Chicago. Her millinery and work as an Ager/Dyer has appeared in films including My Best Friend’s Wedding, A League of Their Own, and Candyman and TV series including Fargo Season 4, 61^st Street and The 4400. Outside of theatre, Laura has a line couture hats, Laura Whitlock Millinery. She was a founding member of The Millinery Arts Alliance, an award-winning organization of professional milliners. Lark Millinery, an everyday line, is Laura’s newest venture, created for Chicago’s innovative collective boutique, Union Handmade.

Laura teaches millinery, costume crafts and textile arts in the costume department of The Theatre School of DePaul University. She has presented hat making workshops for Judith M Millinery Supply, Millinery Meetup 2016 & 2018, The United States Institute of Theatre Technology, The Clothing Studio of The Henry Ford Museum, and The Jane Austen Society of North America.

Laura lives just north of Chicago with her husband Dave, youngest son Vincent, and an assortment of delightful pets.

WAYNE WICHERN – United States

Wayne Wichern’s millinery design and teaching career evolved out of his experiences as a floral designer, classical ballet dancer and his interest in fashion and costume design. Wayne grew up on a farm in Cody, Wyoming. The development of his professional talents as a celebrated hat designer is apparent when following the winding path of creative and artistic endeavors pursuits he has mastered. Beginning as a floral designer in Seattle, then locating to New York City to pursue dance as a classical ballet dancer. The gradual evolution of an interest in fashion and costume design precipitated a return to Seattle where work in theater costuming and retail store and window display eventually transformed into his now 34-year millinery design and teaching career.
Wayne’s elegant hats have sold in such fine stores as Barneys NY and Nordstrom. He has created hats for theater productions of the Belfry Theater in Victoria, BC, Art Club Theater, Vancouver, BC, San Francisco Ballet, Seattle Repertory Theater, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. His innovative hat designs are in collections of the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, WA. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, Women’s Wear Daily, Victoria Magazine, and Fiberarts Design Book Six. Wayne is a skilled teacher who continually works to inspire and encourage students to pursue their interests in professional design careers.
https://www.waynewichernmillinery.com/

Faculty – virtual school year 2021 -2022

JAY CHENG– Canada

Internationally acclaimed milliner and style icon Jay Cheng, founder of Jaycow Millinery, brings her unique style and design to Canada with her first ready to wear collection Block Common. Mixing and matching her extensive collection of over 400 hat blocks from all over the globe to create democratic shapes that break the rules and reveal the multiplicity of character. Block Common is Jay’s fresh and contemporary take on popular common hat blocks from throughout the 20th century. Jay is known both for her playful innovation and her meticulous craftsmanship. Since beginning her career in Fashion and Design in Hong Kong over 25 years ago, Jay has produced countless editorials and runway shows, executed a wide range of costume, wardrobe, and styling for film, television, print, commercial, and live performances. While on this journey as a creative, Jay fell in love with the art of Millinery and in 2004 began Jaycow Millinery. Since then she has created hundreds of bespoke pieces. Her international clientele includes private hat-lovers, brides, costume designers, and renowned celebrities. Drawing on her background as a Creative Producer, Jay has an instinct for bringing out the unique personality, flair and poetics of an individual through her Millinery creations. A rebel by nature, Jay’s design never ceases to challenge and surprise, yet each piece also demonstrates her profound respect for traditional craftsmanship. She has traveled the world honing her craft, and counts many of today’s Millinery Masters as her friends, teachers, and colleagues. A highlight of her success has been being able to become a teacher of the millinery arts, Jaycow has been invited to run workshops and masterclasses in cities such as: Hong Kong, New York, London, Los Angeles, San Diego, Shanghai, and Toronto. Jaycow is currently based in Toronto, and lives with her photographer husband, Franklin, 2 sons Fei and Max, and 2 pups Nana and Chewy.
https://www.jaycowmillinery.com/

SVETLANA FAULKNER– Great Britain

Svetlana Faulkner is one of the UK’s leading designers of art flowers made with fabric and genuine leather employing advanced techniques. Following her extensive training with some of the experts in the craft from Russia and Japan, she has founded the PresentPerfect Creations studio. Svetlana successfully juggles parenting, gardening, cooking and her passionate devotion at PresentPerfect Creations. She is the creative force behind it and she is involved in the whole process of producing flower pieces from design to material selection through actual making and assembling elements into a finished piece.
All of Svetlana’s items are made from scratch. Most of them are hand-dyed which is why the studio offers a stunning range of accessories ready to ship as well as made to order in most colors to match your theme, preferences or outfit.
Her collection includes handcrafted intricate hair adornments, headbands, hairpieces, and cocktail hats, brooches and corsages, necklaces, shoe clips, young girls hair accessories and so much more.
Svetlana is inspired by the color and form of flowers in nature, the arts, and fashion. She is constantly challenging and perfecting her techniques to ensure each creation is made to Svetlana’s exacting standards of excellence.
After starting with an Etsy shop back in 2011 and developing her skills through hard work, experimentation and study, Svetlana launched her website three years later. She also shares her knowledge through online tutorials and workshops.
https://presentperfectcreations.com/

NEIL GRIGG– Australia

In his 30-year career, Neil has created thousands of hats for brides, race-goers and celebrities alike. He has created headwear for theatre productions such as Miss Saigon, 42nd Street, Glimpses and Les Miserables.
Renowned for his beautiful hand-made flowers, enchanting feather-work, and endless imagination, Neil’s headpieces bring a particular individual style for each client. His bridal wear ranges from delicate headpieces through to flowing full-length veils. His racewear channels a vintage elegance that has a theatrical lilt and individuality that has resulted in many of his clients becoming finalists or winning “Fashions on the Field”.
Neil supplies a couture-line of fascinators, headpieces and hats to David Jones for Spring Carnival. His past clients include Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Lady Sonia McMahon, Gai Waterhouse, Jennifer Hawkins, Tara Moss, Kerri-Anne Kennerley, Catriona Rowntree, Jodi Gordon, Sonia Kruger, Jessica Rowe, Maria Venuti, Joanna Griggs, Annalies Seubert and Esther Anderson, just to name a few.
Throughout Australia, Neil judges fashion competitions, regularly teaches millinery master classes and appears on television.
http://www.neilgriggmillinery.com/

ROSE HUDSON– Australia

LOUISE MACDONALD – Australia

Louise is one of Australia’s leading millinery educators drawing upon her millinery training in the UK and her vast experience. While in London, Louise worked as a theatrical milliner for BBC costume dramas and films before transitioning to fashion millinery.
Louise’s millinery business offers bespoke as well as ready-to-wear creations. The Melbourne Cup is run in the Australian Spring is a major focus for Australian fashion milliners. Louise has created a spring range for Hugo Boss stores in Melbourne for the last 12 years!
In 2018–2019 the focus has been teaching millinery, having presented courses in Ireland, The Netherlands and the USA, with plans to continue sharing her skills in Australia and internationally in 2020. In 2018 Louise launched her first online course with Hat Academy. There are more online courses in the pipeline!
You can see more of Louise Macdonald Milliner’s designs on her website www.millinery.com.au

CAROLE MAHER – Australia

PHILLIP RHODES – Australia

Phillip has made a career from creating original hats across many areas of endeavor. Originally trained through traditional workroom techniques, Phillip’s impeccable finishes and detail are reflected in his fashion millinery.
Working in London for several years with Berman and Nathan costumiers, Phillip expanded into theatrical millinery for the West End theatres, the film industry, and television.
Phillip’s handiwork has been on show in productions Miss Saigon, Les Miserables and Beauty and the Beast in theatres across the globe. He has also made headwear for national advertising campaigns, television serials and major motion pictures. In London, he made hats for Joan Collins, Kim Cattrall and Joanna Lumley.
Upon returning to Australia, Phillip became head of Millinery with the Australian Ballet, creating the headwear for entire ballets that are still in repertoire, but the call of the wild saw him return to working for himself. He has since made hats for shows such as Sunset Boulevard, Sisterella, Moonshadow, and Eureka, and the Singapore Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty, and Queensland Ballet’s Cinderella.
Since 2018, whilst creating hats for his regular clientele and achieving 100% sell-through with his popular wholesale range for iconic Melbourne department store, Myer, Phillip ventured forth on an exhausting coterie of theatrical projects.
For the Australian Ballet, Phillip was responsible for realizing the original design concept of over 60 hats and headpieces for The Happy Prince. He also recreated items of headwear for existing productions of Cinderella, Coppelia, The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and Nutcracker. Phillip also made hats for mainstage productions of Barnum, Muriel’s Wedding, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Ragtime. The Victorian Opera commissioned Phillip to make a suite of glistening headdresses for Wagner’s Parsifal, folk headdresses for Rossini’s William Tell, sweeping Edwardian glamour for Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and high fashion headpieces for a new production Lorelei by Julian Langdon.
For his ‘home base’ Melbourne Theatre Company where Phillip is house milliner, a big year of ‘hatty’ shows meant a busy time. Phillip made hats for the Twelfth Night, Lady in the Van, Arbus and West, Kiss of the Spiderwoman and a monumental workload for a staged version of Shakespeare in Love ( for which the 95-hour working weeks nearly killed him).
Phillip is eager to see what 2020 has in store as he has been awarded the Melbourne Theatre Company’s Travel Award to seek professional development in Europe before venturing back to the Smoky Mountains in September.
To see Phillip’s work visit his website, http://www.philliprhodes.com.au/collections.html

WAYNE WICHERN – United States