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Dressed: The History of Fashion
The Art of Historical Hatmaking with Rachel Frost (Dressed Classic)
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Cass
enjoy one of our favorite episodes from the Dressed archive of over 500 plus shows.
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April Callahan
Over 7 billion people in the world. We all have one thing in common. Every day we all get dressed.
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Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion a podcast where we explore the who, what, when of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your hosts,
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April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary.
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Hello everyone. Today we are so pleased to welcome Rachel Frost to the show. Rachel is a traditional hatter and historian who specializes in high quality hand felted hats created using historical techniques and tools and she is completely self taught. She is motivated by equal parts curiosity and creativity and Rachel has spent countless hours mining archives and museum collections to teach herself about the art of historical hat making going going all the way back to the 16th century which is pretty amazing before she even began to hone her own craft.
- [02:59]
Yeah, Rachel has made this incredible career out of her beautiful hand felted historical hats and she has worked with everyone from museums and reenactors to theaters, films and television Companies. You can find her work in productions from the Globe, Hampton court at the VNA and on the BBC's Tudor monastery farm series. So we are so thrilled that she agreed to join us all the way from the Edinburgh countryside in Scotland to teach us about the art and history behind her incredible work.
- [03:29]
Rachel, welcome to Dressed.
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Rachel, welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to have you here with us today.
- [03:35]
Rachel Frost
Thank you very much for inviting me.
- [03:37]
April Callahan
So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your craft and maybe what initially sparked your interest in pursuing it?
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Rachel Frost
Well, I've always been a sort of creative person. I was brought up in quite an artistic family. So I've always had lots of sort of materials and encouragement to do creative, various kinds of crafts and creative activities. So initially I trained as a model maker for animation and I felt I wanted to become a puppet maker. So I spent a little bit of time dabbling in that. I worked for Jim Henson's Creature Shop on a few films there and I did a little bit of model making for some animations. I quite quickly realized that I wanted to do something that was a bit more, a bit more rural based, bit more kind of traditional craft based and less film based. So I started to dabble in different traditional crafts and I got very interested in the history of them, of various British crafts, lots of textile based ones and costume as well. So I dabbled in a bit natural dyeing, so spinning. And then I discovered felt making. Somebody bought me a book about felt making and there was a section in there about making felt hats. So I had a go at making a very crude felt hat by just gathering some wool off the fences in the fields around and about and just fashioned this rather unflattering looking hat. But it was just such a magical process of turning raw fleece into, into a functioning wearable hat that it just totally sparked an interest and that was the beginning of, of what is probably a big chunk of what I do. So I still do lots of different crafts, but felt hat making or traditional felt hat making is really what I'm most well known for.
- [05:31]
April Callahan
Yeah. And you're only one of, if I'm not mistaken, nine traditional felt hat makers in the world who uses this traditional technique. Correct.
- [05:39]
Rachel Frost
I wouldn't like to put a figure on it of how there are. So I've recently, over the last sort of five years, started to look over the around the whole world to find out if there were any other felt hat makers that are using a very European traditional technique which died out in Britain. About 150 years ago, and which is what I've been working on for many, many years now to kind of resurrect and relearn mostly from written references. So I then found that there were a couple in Europe that survived who. But they have since passed away. And now I've been looking around the rest of the world, and I'm finding there's a. There's maybe a handful of other hat makers in various countries, mostly in South America. So I. I wouldn't like to say how many there are, but I just know that there are very, very few left in the world using. I know I am talking about a very specific technique here of felt hat making. There's a lot of felt makers using or doing all sorts of wonderful things with wool all over the world. But this is a very sort of historical, traditional technique of hat making that I'm specifically studying and researching and doing myself.
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April Callahan
Right. And you said it died out over 150 years ago. So I'm really curious a little bit about how you pursued studying this and reviving the technique. Can you tell us a little bit maybe about what you learned about its history, but also how you taught yourself, what sort of sources you used?
- [07:11]
Rachel Frost
So, well, initially, I just played around with just very basic, simple techniques, but I was getting very frustrated with the. The end product of what I was making. So the early ones were quite. Quite rustic, quite chunky. And then when I started to look at original ones in museums, because there are still quite a few surviving felt hats from going back to. I think the earliest ones were 16th century. And the ones that I was looking at were. Were very fine. They were beautifully made and very even and very much like a modern felt you would expect from a modern felt hat. But knowing that these were actually entirely handmade before an era of mechanization, and that I realized that I was. Something I needed to change the way I was making these felt hats. So then I started trying to find old manuscripts and any documentation at all that related to the processes that were used prior to the 19th century. So what happened in the. In the 19th century, obviously, is the Industrial Revolution, which completely turned around the process of making felt. So my interest is everything to do with felt making before that time in Europe or particularly in Britain. So there's not a lot actually on the subject of felt making. There's not really any books on felt hat making. And I'm. Yeah, specifically, this is Britain that I was looking at at the time. So it was like piecing together a jigsaw with hundreds of pieces and just. Which I'm still. Still collecting the pieces for. So some of them would be like written references, Some of them would be. They might. Some of them might have illustrations. And then looking at the original hats themselves. Yeah, there's a lot. A lot of different things that go into. To trying to recreate the technique. So a lot of the time I'll just be. I might find an illustration of some of the tools, but it might not explain too much about how they were used. So I would go out and make the tools in hope that if I just play around with them, I might discover what they were for. So that's. It's very much kind of like experimental archaeology, just playing around because there's nobody to actually learn from, which is how you would normally learn some of that kind of skill. It would be something that's passed down through an oral tradition. It's been a very slow process to relearn the technique. And I am still learning now. There's still much to learn. Yeah.
- [09:39]
April Callahan
Which you document a lot of on your fabulous Instagram account. I must say that's been really a joy to kind of see the ways that you have learned your craft and use your craft. In 2008, you received the Janet Arnold Award, and I know that it was able to facilitate your access to maybe extant examples of historical dress. It got you into museums and private collections where you studied some of these felted hats up close. Can you tell us maybe what you learned from these surviving examples of hats? Although I think one of my favorite hats that you did was that swan hat that I think you said was based on a 15th century manual. And it's literally a swan.
- [10:17]
Rachel Frost
Swan hat that was from a fencing. It was a fencing manual of all things. I mean, not the most manly of hats. So yeah, just to describe the hat, it was a red and white kind of slightly peaked cap with a swan's head coming off the top as the crown. Most bizarre. There are some really bizarre hats out there, and quite often the ones that survive in the museums are not typical hats. So quite often the concealed items, maybe they were hidden in a roof of an old house or something. I think they were considered good luck. Also hide shoes and various items of clothing. So quite a lot of the hats are from that. Or they might be a particularly fine example. Example or a particularly odd example. So you have to be quite careful when you're looking at extant examples in museums because they're not always a typical garment. But things that I would be looking for, I Mean, I didn't really know what I was looking for, so I kind of went in with tape measures and scales. So I'd be weighing them, microscope and I'd be looking and photographing and any clue at all that I could find to help me just to learn anything. So obviously I'd be looking at the styles, but I was particularly interested in the way they were made. And very often there wasn't much to give away that they were handmade because they were so beautifully made that there's, you know, I'd be looking for flaws and any kind of irregularities, but often they were absolutely perfect. But it was the nearest I could get to meeting a hat maker was actually having contact with these hats. It's almost like some kind of non visible thread that connected you to the makers of these hats from centuries ago. It was, yeah, it's quite a, it's quite an honor really to be able to handle a hat that's 500 years old. It's almost like you can't really put it into words really the connection that you have with the maker. But definitely helps.
- [12:13]
April Callahan
Right. And then you go into your workshop and you start experimenting with how to recreate this process, which is, is so incredible. Your research is predominantly practice based. You taught yourself how to do this 16th century felt hat making technique through practice. And for those of our listeners who might not know, can you tell us a little bit about what felt is and maybe about your process from start to finish? You know, maybe an overview of your process. You're intimately involved in every single part, which is so wonderful. You know, this begins with raising the very sheep whose wool you use.
- [12:52]
Rachel Frost
Yeah, well, I don't always use my own sheet wool, but there is something with all the crafts that I do, one of the things that really, one of the things that really makes me tick is to be able to take a raw material and turn it into a fine product at the end to, to the extreme that I would get my own sheep and shear them and dye the wool. But I have to say I don't do that with all the hats that I do other because it would just take, take too long. But I do, you know, when I'm making, when I'm weaving, I also make hats out of plant materials and I really love going out into the, into the woods and just gathering the materials and collecting the dye plants. So I think it's really important to at least to have an intimate knowledge of all the processes even if you don't do them all the time. I think it's really, really valuable to have the experience of every process, even if it's just to be able to appreciate the skills of the different artisans that would have gone into the different stages of the hat. Felt is just a tangled mat of fibres and animal fibres have a natural tendency to want to felt. Some of them will felt more than others in the same way that some people's hair knots quicker than others. Mine doesn't match very much, but some people have to brush it all the time because otherwise it gets really tangled. So obviously, if you're wanting to make felt, you're going to pick fibres that felt quicker or that have a greater tendency to felt. So sheep's wool is very good. Rabbit fur is particularly good. And then the finest fibers of all really are the beaver. They're incredibly fine and they make a very, very dense felt that lasts a lot. It's much more robust, it lasts a lot longer than the wool. And so to create felt, the felt for a hat, first of all, you have to open up the fibers and get rid of any tangles that there are and you want to randomly align them so they're just as random as possible. And there are different tools you can use to do this. You can use hand carders that, that spinners would use and they kind of brush all the knots out. But the more traditional tool for the hat making process is something called a bow carder. And this to describe it, it's about 7 foot long. It looks like a cello bow or fiddle bow and it has a thick gut string stretched across it. And to describe how it works you. Yeah, it's very heavy and it's got a string supporting the, the back of the bow. Imagine it hangs horizontally over a table and there's a string supporting it. And then the person that's using it holds it in the center and plucks the string, the gut string, with a little stick and it sets this string kind of vibrating, oscillating. And when you put place this string into the fibers, it has this effect of flicking them into the air and they fly across the table and they land on the other side of the table. And what it's doing is it's opening up the fibers and making them really random, like the fluffiest cloud you could possibly imagine. So you start off with this clump of fiber and you end up with this big fluffy cloud. And this tool does a fantastic job of making them as random as possible, which is then going. When you actually become to felting it, you're it's going to give you a nice, even, smooth felt and nice and dense. And the actual felting is done for hat making traditionally on a, on a hot plate with water so you have lots of steam. It's quite dangerous really. I mean there's, there's a lot of, you know, I'm covered in burns from doing it, but you actually physically agitate the fibers so you rub them with your hands over a hot plate. So it's a bit like working in a sauna. And the more you rub, the more knotted they become. The fibers become tighter and tighter.
- [16:52]
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- [19:14]
April Callahan
so this bow, I just want to go back to it for a second because I never would have imagined this tool until I saw it on your Instagram. That's how I first came to you. I saw this image of you carrying it and I was immediately intrigued. And this is one of those tools that you saw in the archive and recreated from historical documents?
- [19:34]
Rachel Frost
Yeah. Well, originally I didn't. I worked without a bow and I just thought it was going to be too difficult to even start. I didn't even know where to start with it. But no instructions on how to use it. I was just seeing pictures of it in old manuscripts. But then eventually I decided that probably this might have something to do with why my, my hats weren't coming out as well as I would have liked. So I, I just made. At first I made a small one that was about, about 4 foot long and it worked and I then I put it aside for a bit for a few years and didn't bother with it. And then one year I decided I was going to make myself a proper one and I studied. I found a video of a Hungarian hat maker from the 70s I think it was and it showed his him using this bow. So I freeze framed the video and used it as a kind of reference for the scale and made myself a full scale one. And basically for me anyway that was a turning point was to be able to master using this tool has made a huge difference. Now I'm producing felt hats much like the ones that I had been aspiring to make that I was seeing in the museums. And then since then I've done a lot more research on the bow and finding other places that other people hatters that use them in the past, looking at examples in museums and traveling to different countries. Because this bow was used all over, well in many countries in Europe simultaneously appeared all over Europe in the 16th century, 15th 16th century. So now I'm. That's one part of my research is to find places where this bow existed and compare them.
- [21:14]
April Callahan
Yeah. And probably learn about how it traveled to all these different places. Right. I read an article in which you wrote that the techniques that Came to Britain in the 16th century, actually came with immigrant Huguenot felt makers, as I understand.
- [21:27]
Rachel Frost
Yeah. The French moved to Southwark and London and brought the bow with them. And I don't think we had the bow before then. So I think any, any fine hats, like things like the hat that cardinals would have been wearing before that date would have been coming, but would have been made in, in Italy or France. So the, the skill was, the knowledge was there before it came here. And then I, as I understand it, probably went to America in the 16th century with the Spanish. Probably took it there. Yeah.
- [21:56]
April Callahan
Which I'm glad you actually mentioned that because where I'm from in New Mexico and we talked a little bit about this earlier, but the Spanish brought sheep into New Mexico when they came in the 16th century and they brought all of their weaving and tools and techniques with them as well. So the tradition, and I'm sure felt making too. I'd be really interested to see how far back felt making goes in New Mexico as well. It's such a very, very time honored tradition and craft that you are practicing in this very day and age. And so you fluff the fibers with your bow, then you felt them rub them together and felt it over this hot plate. At what point do you dye it? Because I think your dyeing process is really fascinating too because you use all natural dyes.
- [22:40]
Rachel Frost
I do both. I do, where possible I use natural dyes. Well, that's interesting. If you'd asked me that three weeks ago, I would have given you a different answer than I'm going to give you now. So you can dye the fibers to start with in the fleece or you can dye the hat once you've made it into a felt hat. But recently went on study trip to Mexico and I met a couple of hat makers there and I realized, or I learned that they actually dye it somewhere between the two. Because what happens is that if you dye the wool when it's fleece, it felts a bit in the dye pot and you've got to get all the clumpy dots out. If you dye it after you felted it, the dye doesn't really penetrate through the felt because it's very dense. So if you dye it halfway through the process, when it's looking a bit like a felt hat but it's not really tight, then you'll get a much better colour going right through the whole felt. Colour wise, most hats historically are black. You do find red ones and lots of illustrations from the medieval period of different coloured hats. Although you have to be a bit careful when you're using paintings as a reference because obviously an artist palette is different than a dyer's palette. And so they. The artist might go, oh, I've got this fabulous green. So beautiful. I must. What can I do? I'll paint this hat green, but it doesn't mean that the hats were green, you just have to be a little bit careful. But anyway, yes, there are different coloured hats. Generally I use black, though. But black can be made from many different natural dyes. Generally they'll start off as a color and then you will over dye them with an iron, what's called a mordant, and it changes the colour. So you might have something that's red, add iron and it'll turn to a kind of red black. Or you might use logwood and that will give you a lovely purple. You add the iron and it'll turn it into a kind of purpley black. So there's lots of different, many, many different recipes and there are actually some old medieval written references to recipes that were used by hat makers to create a black. And they're often quite complicated. Lots of over dyeing. It's not just a simple, you know, like a dylon, stick it in the washing machine and out comes black. It's a very involved process with many different elements to it, different dyes that you would over dye.
- [25:00]
April Callahan
And then when you. The final processes are obviously blocking and shaping the hat. Can you tell us about that final process? And I can't imagine that this is something that happens quickly. How long does a typical hat take to make the whole.
- [25:16]
Rachel Frost
Well, the whole thing, it does depend on. On the style of hat. So a small hat doesn't take anywhere near as long as a big one. So a very simple cap could be made in a few hours. I've made a ginormous. In fact, I'm looking at the hat box here where I'm sitting. I've got. I made a bicorn from a. An 18th century illustration that is four foot long, wide. That took me two weeks to make. But I would say somewhere, generally an average kind of hat would take about two days.
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April Callahan
When you say that bicorn, is that something that you shaped on a block or how would you even achieve something that large?
- [25:53]
Rachel Frost
Well, the size is more to do with the making of the felt in the first place. So you can't. Like, when you buy commercially made felt for making felt hats that are machine made, they come a set size and you can shape that to many different styles. But you can't make it bigger. You can cut it down and make it smaller, but you can't make it bigger. So if you want a big hat, you have to make a big piece of felt in the first place. So that's one of the joys of, of what I do, is that I don't have any restrictions of the size or the shape. So I can make some fantastical shapes that wouldn't be achievable with a machine made piece of felt. So that's one advantage. And different thicknesses as well. They tend to come as standard, thick, standard weight, and I can make them as thick or as thin. And different bits of the hat can be different thicknesses.
- [26:45]
April Callahan
Yeah, I think that would be one of the funnest parts of what you do is bringing that shape of hat into being. Do you always know what shape you're going for when you start or sometimes. Is there an artistic experimentation in your process?
- [26:58]
Rachel Frost
I would say generally I do plan well. Quite generally, I'm working to an illustration. They're reproductions of old hats, so they have to look exactly as the portrait or the original. But more lately I've been working on my own kind of more contemporary designs that are inspired by historical. So there is an element of kind of just seeing how the material pans out. But I do tend to. I don't tend to work with sketches and I do usually know what I'm aiming to achieve. But felt is a bit kind of. It does have almost like an organic life of its own and it does tend to do a little bit what it, what it wants. But for me, I like to be able to. I want total control of it before I allow the freedom, if that makes sense. Master it before you start exploring.
- [27:49]
April Callahan
Absolutely. And you do not just felt hats, you weave them too, which these creations are just incredible and wonderful. Can you tell us about your rush plated hats? And also, I should say, you also have this 1830s men's jacket that you recreated. Maybe not wearable, but it certainly is one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen.
- [28:10]
Rachel Frost
Thanks. So, yeah, going back to my roots, I just like working with all kinds of natural materials. I'm not just restricted just to felt. So I've done quite a bit of basket making, reproduction baskets, and then it seems logical to me to kind of somehow blend basket making and hat making. So I started to work to find a material that I could actually weave a hat. So I didn't want to use willow because that's really hard. But there's a Plant that grows in the rivers here. Just a wild native plant called Scurpus lacustris is its Latin name, and it's more commonly used for platting, for twisting and making the seating of chairs. But you can also weave hats out of it. It's wonderfully supple, but also robust at the same time. So I started making, basically, sun hats for reenactors. And then it's. I started working on top hats, and then I. To make the. The hats, you have to use the very finest. Finest, as in quality, rather than how thick they are rushes. And I end up with a lot of. A lot of wastage left over. So rather than just put it on the compost, I thought, well, what can I do with all this? I know I'll make an 1860s coat out of it. So I took a. I took a pattern from. From an old costume book and scaled it up to human scale, and then I basically wove it as if it was a piece of tapestry, but using these rushes that I'd got from the River Thames. So you can wear it?
- [29:40]
April Callahan
Oh, you can wear it.
- [29:41]
Rachel Frost
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You can get it on, but it's not very comfortable. Although, to be honest, those coats from that period were quite well padded anyway, so they weren't very flexible. But I designed it more as a sculptural piece. But I really like. For me, it was very important that it represented an original coat. Exactly. And it would theoretically be wearable. That was very important for me.
- [30:04]
April Callahan
It's incredible. And all the variations in color that come through with the. With the different reading is so beautiful. So, so beautiful.
- [30:12]
Rachel Frost
Yeah. Really subtle. Lots of orange and greens and yellows that fade gradually over time, but they. Yeah, it's a really beautiful material.
- [30:22]
April Callahan
And you've even woven it to look like it's almost. Somebody is wearing it because it almost feels like it's in movement and emotion, which is beautiful.
- [30:29]
Rachel Frost
Yeah. I'd like to say that was intended, but that is an example of one of where the material decides what it wants to do. As I. As I wove it, it was like this is. There. Is. It feels like there's somebody in it. Yeah.
- [30:42]
April Callahan
So you mentioned reenactors briefly. Your handcrafted hats are in high demand. They can be seen on everyone from historical reenactors to actors at the Globe Theater to productions of the BBC. Can you tell us a little bit about the clientele that you work with and what. What that experience has been like?
- [30:59]
Rachel Frost
The reenactment scene in. In Britain has just been amazing to me, really if it wasn't for them, I would definitely wouldn't have been able to, to learn what I have done. So although I'm self taught, there's only so many things that I can make and have around me before you end up not being able to move in your home. So I needed somebody that I could actually pass these hats and various things onto. So reenactors are amazing bunch of people over here that really, they really appreciate how something is made, perhaps in a way that other areas don't. So traditional crafts people, they like the product, but the reenactors are very interested in how it's made. So they really value that you spent. It's all, everything's been hand stitched or naturally dyed or you've researched the whole thing. So they have enabled me to keep making and keep learning all the different crafts that I, that I practice. So I guess that the reenactment seems very similar to in the States. We have different sort of almost like different levels. Some reenactors are interested in the fighting and others are interested in the, what we say, the living history, the dying history.
- [32:13]
April Callahan
I mean, it's really fascinating because we have a similar scene here in America. And you know, you have the Civil War reenactors and then you know, the people that are working at Colonial Williamsburg, for instance. And I just think it's so fascinating to hear that little bit about it, what the scene's like in England, because it's so fascinating to me. I've met so many wonderful people through Instagram, of all places that are living and breathing fashion history. They use all of these traditional techniques to recreate their garments and it's just really, really cool and fascinating. Can you also tell us you've worked a lot with the Tudor tailors, which is a really cool company in the uk? Can you tell us a little bit about your work with them?
- [32:54]
Rachel Frost
So I was originally brought in to work with the Tudor tailors on a hat pattern. So they were looking to reconstruct a typical Tudor knitted cap. And because of my experience as a felt maker, I was brought in to look at the process of, of the fulling as, as it would be called for the knitted caps, which is very similar to felting. But it's basically you would take your knitted cap and then you, you felt it afterwards. So that a lot of the illustrations of the knitted caps. So like Henry viii, you can't actually see that it's knitted because it's been so heavily felted or fulled that the knitting structure Disappears. So I was brought in to, to investigate that with an aim to, to produce this pattern that we could to share so that everybody could have a go at recreating these caps. But the more I got involved, the more hooked I got. I mean we went to thousands of these museums and there's actually quite a lot of these early caps surviving. And being a knitter myself, I got. We were counting stitches and trying to work out how that, how these people knitted these hats. So I would, I was basically eat, sleep, breathing knitted hats at one point. And I do, I dream about it and wake up and be like, I've got it. I know how they did that bit, how they turned the corner. It was a very, some very exciting times. Yeah. So the, the book I think is actually due out this year where we, we started work on these, on this knitted pattern like 10 years ago and it's finally come to fruition. So yeah, I wrote the knitting pattern for the book that's due out this year. So you'll all be able to go out and make your own knitted caps and instructions in there on how to finish them as well.
- [34:38]
April Callahan
Yeah, that was my next question. So I'm glad you mentioned it is where can our listeners get these books? Because the Tudor Taylor, they have various publications that you can get. So I'll definitely put a link to that in our show notes so that everyone can check it out. And you do not just make these hats, I should say you can also be found demonstrating your craft in head to toe, I think, 16th and 17th century attire at a working museum where you set up your historically accurate felt makers shop. Can you tell us about this authentic glimpse into the past? And it also appears to be a family affair because there's some lovely images of yourself with your daughters.
- [35:14]
Rachel Frost
So because all my, all the felt making that I do is based on the methods that were made but used by the sort of 16th century hat makers. It's actually no big deal for me to, to do an entirely authentic demonstration of felt hat making so that all the tools that I use at home are 16th century, but I don't use electricity and I try and it's all as authentic as possible. So there's an amazing museum down in the south of England that has a 15th century shop, an original shop that's been taken down and reconstructed in this museum location. And it's almost the spitting image of a hat maker's shop from a 16th century illustration that I have. So I'm really lucky that every year I Go there and I spend a week setting up my hat shop in this building and I can just do all the different processes within this building. And then the public come around and they can watch and ask questions. And it's just a fantastic location. A real privilege to be able to recreate this authenticity atmosphere. And.
- [36:22]
April Callahan
Yeah, and you're not just the. You're not the only person there. Right. There's a lot of people that are recreating this, like, old 16th century, what it might have felt like to be there in the past.
- [36:34]
Rachel Frost
Yeah, yeah. So the site's quite large. I'm not sure how many acres, but there's dozens of buildings that have been saved from that particular area of Sussex. So they're not all medieval. There's like. There's Victorian as well, but they have these interpreters that dress up in an authentic costume and they kind of just. It's like a working museum. So they have a mill and they have a bakery, they have a school room and they've got woodsmen working and animals like oxen that pulling. It's actually like a working museum and people. It really does feel like you've just stepped back in time. And so, yes, great educational place to go.
- [37:14]
April Callahan
And when you're dressed in, you know, the 16th century attire, you're working your 16th century craft. What does that feel like, especially in a setting like that? I mean, obviously there's modern people around you, but that has to feel unique in so many ways.
- [37:31]
Rachel Frost
I think it's like anything you do get used to it. I mean, I frequently these days, I can't even be bothered to get changed into my civvies at the end of the day, and I'll go into the supermarket, still dressed in my 16th century outfit and not bat an eyelid. And because you're just so used to it, it just becomes part of you, really. But. But certainly to start with, it takes. It gets a bit getting used to trying to, you know, working in a. In a corset or bodies or whatever you would call them, but it just feels comfortable to me. I'm used to it, so.
- [38:04]
April Callahan
And what's the name of that museum?
- [38:05]
Rachel Frost
It's called the Weald and Downland Living Museum. That's in Sussex,
- [38:14]
Cass
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Rachel Frost
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Rachel Frost
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- [40:00]
April Callahan
And you're constantly honing your craft. You mentioned this earlier, that you've been to Hungary and you've been to Mecca to visit master hat makers around the world. You recently, as you just said, went to Mexico to study under the master hatter, Lucino Martinez. Can you tell us about that experience? You documented it quite well on your Instagram. Again, our listeners will have to check it out. But what was that like?
- [40:24]
Rachel Frost
Well, the whole. The whole project has been quite an amazing experience because after the two last hatters in Europe died, so there was one in Hungary and then there was one in Austria that died. Last year, I started to look for further afield and discovered this is through YouTube and searching on the web. I found that there was a few in South America. And I managed to, through Instagram find a photographer who was based in Oaxaca and an art student who had also spent a bit of time working with this particular hat maker and managed to reach out to them and they really amazingly got very excited about the what I was interested in and agreed to meet me out in Mexico to go and visit this old hat maker. So I did some crowdfunding, which was also a very valuable experience because it reached out to so many people all over the world that they became aware of the project and what I was doing, because that's part of the problem is that I can't. It's very hard to explain what's so important and significant about this particular technique of felt making. But anyway, this crowdfunding enabled me to do this and lots of people came on board and. And really helped the whole project pull together. So it's about six weeks ago now I. I went out to. To Mexico, met up with these. These two guys and. And we went and met Lucino, who's 78, and he's from a long line of. Of hat makers in a town where there were hundreds of felt hat makers in his lifetime. There were, and he's now the very last one. So he. He showed us the process that he uses which is very, very similar to how the hats were made in Britain and all over Europe. So it was. He was actually the first hat maker that I've ever met. So although I've emailed the one in Hungary and I've been to his workshop subsequently, but I never actually got to meet him. So it was quite an amazing experience to actually spend time with him. He was also very moved that we had come. Traveled so far to come and honor him and his craft. So there were a few tears shed on both sides. Yeah, it was very moving and very informative as well. Yeah. And so we took lots of photographs. There's many more, actually, I need to put up on Instagram, but I hope that I've managed to. We've made a good job of documenting his skill and his craft for future generations, is the plan.
- [42:57]
April Callahan
Yeah, I was going to say. And hopefully inspiring a new generation of hat makers to pick up that technique and help to preserve it. Wow. And I have to say that you also created for your trip a journeyman uniform, which was wonderful. Can you tell us a little bit about what a journeyman uniform is?
- [43:17]
Rachel Frost
So many years and years ago, when you would have a master felt maker. So in Britain, a felt maker would actually be a hat maker. Because in Britain, felt making really was only about hat making. It was quite a. It was an established, very respected trade. You would spend seven years being an apprentice, and then once you finish your apprenticeship, you would then go on and become a journeyman. You would travel around working onto different felt makers to extend your knowledge. And also you would be working. It would be like cheap labor. Cheap, but good labor for the. For the masters. So I decided it was. Although this hasn't been a thing in Britain for probably 150 years, I thought it was about time to revive it. So. And seeing as I was going to be traveling around or my plan is to travel around and find different hat makers, I don't think there were ever any journey women. But I think I could, I'm gonna, we could rectify that. I'll be the first journey woman. So there's not really very much known about them in, in the British tradition, but in Germany they still, there are, there have been a couple of journey women milliners and I think there's even possibly one at the moment doing her journey years, which I think is a three years and a day or something. And they have to travel around with like no money and just being put up by kind people that feed them and, and look after them. And then they just spend different time, you know, working at different places. But one of the things is that they have a uniform so they're easily identifiable really, just so that people can. They know who they are and they're sort of respected. So I made up my own journeyman's outfit that was kind of loosely based on the German tradition, but with a bit of sort of 18th century Britishness to it. And I made shiny buttons out of shillings, silver shillings. So the idea is that should you fall upon hard times, you can exchange your buttons for whatever you need, whether it's food or accommodation.
- [45:22]
April Callahan
Wow.
- [45:23]
Rachel Frost
And I made a special hat out of beaver fur. I made myself a very fine hat. I couldn't go on a journey without a hat. So.
- [45:30]
April Callahan
Yeah. And there's these wonderful images of you that you took before you left with your bow. I don't think you took your bow though. But just.
- [45:36]
Rachel Frost
I didn't know. But I did wear my uniform every day when I was in Mexico. Wow. But surprisingly, nobody batted an eyelid until I came back to Britain. And then they. I got some funny looks. But in Mexico nobody, nobody seemed to, to mind. They were very much more open about what you look like there.
- [45:56]
April Callahan
So I just have one or two more questions actually before we go. This has been such a wonderful treat. Thank you so much for being here. I was pleased to see one of your most recent posts supporting the hashtag who made my clothes. Why is handcraftsmanship more important today than
- [46:12]
Rachel Frost
ever for me in Britain? I feel that we are still suffering from the negative effects of the industrial revolution. So we still have this sort of idea that something that's handmade is not as good as something that's, that's machine made. And I have this theory that in the 60s, when. 1960s when sort of like the hippie movement. And people got into a little bit more into sort of handcrafts. People felt it was important to show that something was handmade. So you go for something that was, like, rustic and hand spinning had to be kind of knobbly and have lots of character, and people don't really. There's less interest in making something that looks perfect and as good as something that's been made on a machine. Because of that, traditional skills got. So people don't even bother trying to make very, very fine lace anymore, or spin super fine or do tiny stitching. They just want it to. It's got to. It's got to be shouting at you, obviously, that it's handmade. So this. One of the things that I'm really interested in is trying to either regain or keep the traditions of something that's very beautifully perfectly made. I suppose that's only one aspect of it, but people are starting to appreciate crafts as a sort of. As a therapy that it's. That it's good for you to just to keep your hands and to slow down and not be always rushing around and take yourself off the computer and get out there and just make something, even if it isn't. It doesn't have to be beautifully perfect, but the actual process of making something is a hugely satisfying activity and something that is definitely a good thing to do. The hashtag the who made my clothes? Yeah, I think it's just really, really valuable to appreciate the processes that go into making everything that's in our lives, all around us. That's. The fashion revolution is obviously, it's doing lots of amazing things, but that's one of the aspects for me is that it just. It makes you think about stuff, the stuff that we have around us, whether it's fashion or whether it's just all material objects and not just, like, throwing things away, valuing things. Even if you bought it from a shop, it's still some. Quite likely that somebody's made it. It doesn't have to be. You need to respect the work that goes into something and value it and not just throw it away.
- [48:43]
Cass
Yeah.
- [48:43]
April Callahan
And I mean, the fashion revolution is so great, too, at reminding us that actually all of our clothes are handmade. There's people, you know, across the world that are making those clothes. And so that movement is really about slowing fashion down, countering fast fashion, and reconnecting people with the clothing that they put on their body. Because when you're Talking about the 16th century, people only had a few pieces of clothing, unless you're astronomically wealthy and you cared and took care of that clothing and you understood the worth of it. And of course, like you just said, the beauty and the artistry of making something with your own hands is just so important. And on that note, I just. We have a little. Many of us, I should say. There's a lot of people still out there working and we're so grateful to all of you. Many of us have a little bit more time on our hands than usual these days. For those who might want to look into learning this craft or just learning more about it, are there some resources that you can suggest until your book comes out?
- [49:42]
Rachel Frost
Well, I haven't actually written a book yet on how to make pot hats, so you'll have to wait a while, quite a bit longer for that one. So, I mean, felt making has undergone a huge resurgence in the last sort of. Well, since the 1960s, but probably in the last 20 years particularly. There's loads of resources out there that will to inspire you on YouTube and the process of felt making, sort of scarves and you can paint. I've got a friend, Moy Mackay, who does beautiful. She uses fibers like, like paint. So she does beautiful Scottish landscapes using. Using colored wools. So yeah, there's loads. But really just doesn't have to be just felt, just anything. Just get out there, whether you're making food or something, just. Just slow down and just make something. Make a work of art out of everything that you do.
- [50:30]
April Callahan
Rachel, thank you so much for being here. This is such a pleasure. I know our listeners are going to immediately get on your Instagram, the Crafty bakers, and then of course your web, which is thecraftybakers.org thank you so much for being here, Rachel.
- [50:44]
Rachel Frost
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.
- [50:47]
April Callahan
Rachel, thank you so much for being here. Cass. How incredible that Rachel is keeping these hat making traditions alive.
- [50:55]
Right, Right.
- [50:57]
And maybe she will just inspire some fellow milliners or aspiring milliners to do the same. And she's actually a woman of many hats, pardon the pun.
- [51:08]
Or not.
- [51:10]
Right. Depending on how you fall on that side of the fence. The Crafty Beggars is not only the name of her historical hat making business, but also her band that performs period music on a variety of instruments. And Rachel plays the pipes and also kind of like a little bit of an anachronistic instrument or lesser known instrument known as the hurdy gurdy, which is a stringed instrument. And the sound that it produces is created by turning a crank and of course, you know, the band obviously performs in historical dress cast.
- [51:45]
Of course, you know, and Rachel actually comes from this incredible family of talented makers, April. So it's no wonder where she gets all of this talent and creativity from, because just last year her father Mark was awarded with an MBE from the Queen of England herself. MBE is of course, the member of the most excellent order of the British Empire. It's quite a distinguished honor and it really celebrates Martin's contributions to the art of vanishing fire edge painting.
- [52:14]
Cass
Have you ever heard of this?
- [52:16]
April Callahan
I didn't know the term, but when you put this forth, I've seen images of it, so I immediately knew what it was. But I had never heard it called that before.
- [52:28]
Yeah, yeah. Well, I had never heard of it.
- [52:30]
Rachel Frost
It's so cool.
- [52:31]
April Callahan
It's so cool. I guess I might have seen it before, but not really understood exactly how much incredible artistry goes into this. So he has been developing this craft for 48 years. And so what vanishing fire edge painting is dress listers. He actually paints a scene on the edge of a book, the edges of a book. So when the book's closed, you can look at the edges. But that's only one type of this painting because the other is when you do it on the fanned pages so that you fan it out and then paint it. So you can literally only see the painting when you fan the book. So it's like magic. There's also two way fire Etch Painting. So he'll paint one painting on one way and then flip it over and paint it on another way. I mean, it's incredible. My mind is blown between him and Rachel. I am just so incredibly inspired. Inspired. And it's so cool to see these artisans practicing these age old crafts today in such a beautiful way. For the occasion, Rachel made him a book themed hat. Of course.
- [53:30]
Rachel Frost
Yeah.
- [53:30]
April Callahan
And if you want to check out his work, I definitely think you should. And that's @foragefrost1 on Instagram f o r e edgefrost and then foragefrost.co.uk, you can also find his work there.
- [53:42]
Cass
So check it out.
- [53:43]
April Callahan
Such a cool family.
- [53:44]
Rachel Frost
Yeah.
- [53:45]
April Callahan
And perhaps it's only a matter of time before Rachel herself is bestowed with the MBE honor for her contribution to the, you know, continuation of this historic hat making technique and tradition and craft.
- [53:59]
Absolutely.
- [54:00]
You can follow Rachel on Instagram Hecrafty Beggars, plural and also thecraftybeggars.org and we will of course provide links in our show notes to this week's episode.
- [54:13]
Well, that does it for us today. Dressed listeners, may you consider incorporating some historically inspired craftsmanship into your wardrobes next
- [54:21]
Cass
time you get dressed?
- [54:27]
Please head to restpodcast on Instagram or Rest Podcast without the underscore on Facebook to check out the visual content associated with each week's episodes.
- [54:38]
April Callahan
And remember, we always love hearing from
- [54:40]
Cass
you, so if you'd like to write to us, you can do so@hellorusthistory.com DressedHistory.com is also our website where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter, our in person tours and online fashion history courses and you can check out whatever else we have up our finely tailored sleeves.
- [54:56]
We get so many questions from you all about our recommendations for fashion history books, so if you are interested you can always find a link in our show Notes to our Bookshop Bookshelf. So that address is bookshop.org shop dress and there you can find over 150 of our favorite fashion history titles.
- [55:17]
And do you love Dressed but want to skip the ads? You can now sign up for Ad free listening with any tier on our Dressed History Patreon.
- [55:25]
We are also excited to now be part of the Airwave Network and their premium ad free history subscription Airwave History plus available on Apple Podcasts. The subscription brings dress and also 27 other popular history podcasts ad free for just $5.99 per month. More information on Patreon and Airwave is available at the link in our bio.
- [55:48]
Thank you as always for tuning in and more dressed coming your way very soon. The History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media.
- [56:00]
Neil and Ken
Hi, I'm Neil. And I'm Ken and we are from the Triviality Podcast, a pub trivia style game show where a lack of seriousness meets a little bit of knowledge. Join us each week for an hour long game of general knowledge trivia featuring special guests from around the world plus tons of extra themed episodes. If you want to improve your trivia game or you just want to scream at us in your car when we get easy questions questions wrong, then we're the show for you. Find Triviality on all your favorite podcast apps. But you know that because you're already listening to a podcast.