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Avid followers of show credits might have paused for a moment at the unusual name that popped up at Thakoon and quickly resurfaced at Proenza Schouler, Betsey Johnson, and Marc by Marc Jacobs: Albertus Swanepoel (middle name, Quartus). Occupation: Milliner. (Yes, that is what he puts on his tax forms.)
Now based in Washington Heights, Swanepoel is originally from Pretoria, South Africa, where he was a Coty Award-winning clothing designer. After arriving in New York in 1989, he set up shop—glove making—with his then wife. How did hats enter the equation? "We realized we needed something to sell in the summer," Swanepoel says.
Swanepoel took night classes at FIT, where he was mentored by Janine Galimard, a milliner from the old school who had worked with Cristobal Balenciaga in Paris and Tatiana du Plessix Liberman at Saks Fifth Avenue. "Galimard was tough—sometimes she made people cry—but she was fantastic," Swanepoel remembers.
The modest milliner insists it would be wrong to say he "designs" the hats for the fashion labels he works with. "It's more finding the right shape, as a draper would do for a designer," he explains. "Materializing their ideas." One of his most successful collaborations was with Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez on the turbans for their Spring 2005 surf-inspired show.
For fall, Jacobs' directive to Swanepoel for Marc by Marc was "ski." The milliner delivered furry hoods and draped berets—as well as a band hat or two. Off the runway, Swanepoel designs the Albertus line of men's hats, which is available at Paul Smith, Bergdorf Goodman, and Odin. His best seller? A porkpie topper.
"Hats," states Swanepoel, "are like sunglasses. They detract and attract attention at the same time." No one missed the 36 beaver-felt twenties-inspired cloche hats the milliner made—in three days—for Proenza Schouler's most recent show. Swanepoel's snug-fitting numbers covered the models' eyes almost completely, emphasizing graphic red lips.
"Swanepoel has a really refined hand," Thakoon Panichgul says, citing "the way that he cut cock feathers into crowns." For the designer's Paul Poiret-inflected show, the milliner painstakingly constructed plumed headbands of black coq feathers, each of which took about eight hours to make. "My record is 55 hours working on a headpiece for Maggie Norris," Swanpoel says.
The best way to wear a hat, Swanepoel suggests, "is with wit," adding that he generally applies a rule of opposites when selecting headgear. A woman with a round face, for example, should wear a square hat; one with a long face, a wide brim. As for hat hair? Well, even Swanepoel hasn't conquered that one yet.
—Laird Borrelli
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