New Press & Video: The Futuristic Hats of Jasmin Zorlu

Jean Jennings knows cars AND she knows hats! As Editor-in-Chief of Automobile Magazine, Jean has been writing about cars and the car business for over 30 years. She's appeared on the Oprah Winfrey's show and the tonight show with Jay Leno. HATS?  She loves them! In her informative automotive related videos on her YouTube Channel, oftentimes she's wearing a hat.

A friend of mine named Chris Monroe who photographs cars for Automobile Magazine told me that I should connect with her on Facebook because he knew that she loves hats.  I did, and the rest is history! Here is the rest of the story.

Recently Jean came to New York City for the Auto Show.  To save her time from coming deep into Brooklyn to visit my studio, I came to her hotel room in the posh Meat Packing district on an intensely rainy day with my huge antique rolling hat box and we shot a video with her very talented videographer.  She had warned me that we might shoot, so I got all dolled up in my 1980s German aviator flightsuit, to delight her.  Why did I think it would delight her? Because I looked like a car mechanic, sort of! She told me that I resembled 'Rosie the Riveter' from the 1940s, because I was wearing my cashmere turban.

Jean chose three hats from me: my favorite brown Barramundi fish leather cocktail hat, a nautical striped buntal straw hat (also called jinsin straw) which she likened to a Gramophone (she wants to wear it to the Grammys!), and a forest green cashmere hat. I'm honored and flattered to grace her head and compliment her dynamic personality! (and have a brand new video to share with you!....scroll to the end of this post to watch it)

Subscribe to Jean's YouTube Channel to learn all about cars.  My personal favorite video is
on 'Keeping Your Dog Safe in the Car'. You know I'm mad about dogs! I can't believe I don't have one yet. Jean has four dogs.

Find the whole article on Jean's website with the video

Jean in her Barramundi Cocktail Hat which I made

Jean in the Buntal Straw Taffy Cocktail Hat which I made

Or, just watch the video of us Here!

Till next time, my lovelies!
xoxo Jasmin

Jasmin Zorlu Millinery
Sculptural Headwear for Earthlings
www.jasminzorlu.com
Brooklyn, New York, Earth

Prada SoHo hosts Great Gatsby Costumes until May 12th, 2013

I first found out that there was going to be a new big exciting movie with amazing costumes and headwear in January 2012, but I didn't know the name of it, because the milliner who was working on it was under oath to keep it secret.  I found out several months afterwards, when the trailer was released.  The milliner in question is the uber talented Rosie Boylan, who I first met then in Australia when we both taught at the International Millinery Forum.  You can see posts I made about the Forum in The Parade of Hats at the International Millinery Forum, The Gorgeous Gala at the International Millinery Forum, Milliners are the Money at IMF, and teaching cocktail hatmaking there in Upcoming Crinoline Cocktail Hatmaking!

I met her last Saturday for a coffee in between her busy schedule.  Read a great article on Style.com, "From the Top: Milliner Rosie Boylan On the Hats of Gatsby". Rosie was enlisted by Catherine Martin, costume designer of The Great Gatsby film to create the extraordinary headwear.  Rosie was here to attend the world premiere. She also attended the opening for the costume exhibit which the Prada SoHo store is hosting until tomorrow, May 12th.  Catherine Martin and her team selected looks from Prada's past collections which were revised slightly to create costumes for the film. You can catch the exhibit next in Tokyo.  Run on down to see it in person! If you can't hop the next plane today, enjoy my many photos.

Great Gatsby costumes in the Prada entrance

The night before I saw the exhibit at the Prada SoHo store, I received a facebook message at 10pm from the famous milliner, Louise Green, inviting me to join her to see the exhibit. She was in New York City for just a few days, showing her line at the Javits center.

We accidentally took the elevator down. It took forever!

It was all oohhs and ahhs for me. Allowed to take as many photos as my heart desired, I did. This is the edited version....

Louise Green and me, Jasmin Zorlu

The Prada SoHo store went all out

And now for the millinery......from front to back!

 

Rosie Boylan wore a hat similar to this black one at the IMF

Napoleanic sinamay!

My absolute favorite dress. I love waist cleavage! Looks good with my minimal chest.

Yummy yummy pleating

Sinamay pleated on the bias!

Ummm....the Prada shoes!

I'm not normally one to go in for studs, but I love this treatment!

Louise Green and I

Rosie Boylan and I

Enjoy some videos on the hosiery, jewelry, and costumes. Check out the hats!
Till next time, my lovelies!
xoxo Jasmin

Jasmin Zorlu Millinery
Sculptural Headwear for Earthlings
www.jasminzorlu.com
Brooklyn, New York, Earth

What a Way to Go! A must watch

Till next time, my lovelies!
xoxo Jasmin

Jasmin Zorlu Millinery
Sculptural Headwear for Earthlings
www.jasminzorlu.com
Brooklyn, New York, Earth

Erykah Badu, Hat Lover!

Yesterday was the lovely Erykah Badu's birthday. She's 42!  In 2003, Erykah walked into a New York City hat boutique in SoHo named The Hat Shop and tried on one of my Molecular Mermaid Helmets, in pinks and reds.  From this sample, she commissioned the same style in velour fur felt in greens and blues, the color of water.  I hand-cut over 100 circles from the felt and then hand-stitched them all to a felt helmet base, which I had also hand blocked.

I was living in Paris at the time, taking a half-year sabbatical from the heavy emotional environment of the September 11th tragedy which was still hanging over New York City, two years later. When I returned from Paris, the heaviness was still there, so I fled to San Francisco. I remained there for 8 years, and returned just this past May 2012 to NYC, for good this time. 

Three years ago to this month, a friend told me that he had been looking on YouTube and found a video of Erykah singing and wearing my hat! I was so excited.  Another friend did a little more research and found some photos on a blog.

Huffington Post did a great piece yesterday, called 'From Towering Headwraps to Crazy Top Hats', about Erykah's many interesting hats and headwraps throughout the years, with a slideshow of 51 images.  What is your favorite? (click the link 'Huffington Post'). I actually like the lilac hat below (not pictured in the Huffington Post), wondering who made it.
Does anyone know?

Erykah Badu in a Jasmin Zorlu hat, photo courtesy of gorillavsbear.net

Erykah Badu singing in her Jasmin Zorlu hat in April 2009 in Texas

Love this hat

xoxo

Jasmin

Jasmin Zorlu Millinery
Sculptural Headwear for Earthlings
www.jasminzorlu.com
Brooklyn, New York, Earth

O, The Oprah Magazine Feature with Jasmin Zorlu!

I was thrilled beyond words when Laura Kiniry sent me a Facebook message last August asking if she could interview me for a BIG name publication.  Laura told me to keep it on the 'low down' after she told me it was Oprah Magazine, which I promised I would.  The strangest thing was that I had kept my goals from 3 years ago, and one of them was 'Get into Oprah Magazine'.  Wow. That's some synchronicity!

I even kept the secret from my very own mother, who had told me at one time that she had a subscription (I memorize details).  I wanted to surprise her.  And was she ever surprised! She called me this past Sunday, telling me that she wanted to frame it in her home for visitors to see.  That is the ultimate compliment.  Right away, I walked over to the corner drugstore to see if it was already on the news stands, and there it was! I'm so honored. Can you imagine? It has a 2.5 million circulation.  Call me space cadet, but I had no idea magazines came out 3 weeks before the Month they're posted for. Thank goodness my friend Ce Ce told me this a week ago after a relaxing day at Spa Castle, a Korean spa.

Laura had first written about me for a magazine in an article entitled 'Mad Hatters' in December of 2009. I even had the thrill of going to the Hearst Tower to deliver hats to the offices of Oprah Magazine for their staff photographer to shoot. 

Here is the article in O, The Oprah Magazine March issue on page 44, hurry now and rush to your local news stand, drug store, even Whole Foods! I hope to meet her someday. I really admire her.  I'm going to get her bio from the library this weekend!

And check out my Etsy online store, I'm adding new hats to it everyday, especially new spring/summer hats!  A new website is in the works....stay tuned!

Till next time, my lovelies! 

xoxo 
Jasmin 
 
Jasmin Zorlu Millinery
Sculptural Headwear for Earthlings
www.jasminzorlu.com
Brooklyn, New York, Earth

Macabre as a fashion trend

Recently, I attended a trend forecasting presentation by Trend Union for Fall/Winter 2013 at Parsons The New School for Design, where I teach Millinery to juniors and seniors.  They gave a whole slide presentation with background music, and then explained what the slides meant. What really stood out was the trend of 'macabre', which they also called 'melancholia'. There's even a Facebook page entitled 'Beautiful Macabre Gothic Fantasy Surreal Art'.

Melacholia is what's happening today.  We can expect things to shock us. Gothic, but beyond it. Make it beautiful!

Flip Out Fascinator Cocktail Hat I made from Fish Leather

Feel-good knits are trendy, a response to melancholia.  We want to feel protected and comforted, so we turn to clothing to keep us cocooned in warm comfort.  Think cowls and hoods! When I think of feel-good knits, I think of Sandra Backlund.  Sandra went past the norm in the fashion world.  The same year that she graduated from a college of design in Stockholm, she formed her own company: 2004.  And she's been very successful at it. So listen up, my dear Parsons students, you don't always have to graduate, intern, then work for another designer before launching your own business.  You can go solo right away! I believe that if you have the ambition, business smarts and extreme talent, you can make it. Never give up. And if one form doesn't work out for you, switch it up! Coco Chanel went from milliner to fashion designer!

Sandra Backlund's amazing cardigan

Trend Union went on to say that because there are more zombie and dracula movies, the trend is showing up in fashion.  I'm getting addicted to this semi-good show called 'Once Upon a Time', where fairy tale land and modern day comingle.



They went on to mention the 'Mystic' trend which will be really hot next Fall.  Mystic as in "beyond normal human perception". We'll be into monk and nun-like garments, pointy hoods, felted, woolen things....Colors? White to off white to grey, as well as "handsome brooding shades": charcoal, periwinkle, blood red, mustard.

People will be more into hiding. Does this mean a resurgence of veils, hoods, shawls? I can do that in cashmere! I've already seen it in infinity scarves.

I can imagine this Barramundi skin cocktail hat I just made on that tv show, 'Once upon a time'.

One of my newest pieces, fit for a fairy. Own it!

I kind of got attached to it...

Me at Parsons' faculty holiday party wearing the hat,
a cashmere dress I made from 2004,
and an Austrian boiled wool cardigan which I remade

Sometimes I get pangs of heavy sadness when I hear about the glaciers melting, or some crazy devastation happens like Hurricane Sandy.  I just heard today from a friend who's a clown who went to entertain some kids there yesterday about how many houses in the Far Rockaways (near J.F.K airport for you who don't live here and want to visualize it) are completely gutted and they have stopped counting dead bodies. Oh and the immigrants aren't counted, because they're aliens.  Come on, I had more respect for you before, New York City....now I really think you might be a heartless corporate machine.  Aliens are human, too, you know. At least for now, until we're invaded by the 'other' ones.

And so now, here is my vision of how this trend is showing up in other artforms like music, art, and clothing.

Macabre in Music....

Fever Ray, an amazing quirky Swedish musician, sings 'Keep the Streets Empty for me'.

My favorite Icelandic composer...Stilluppsteypa!

I  had a dream the other night that a tarantula spider was crawling up my leg. I didn't notice it apart from a gentle squeezing and then I looked down and saw it smack dab in the middle of my thigh.  If I had $500 to blow right now, I would buy this for myself and then put on my hats (and freak everybody out)

Macabre in Jewelry....

brooch by mario salvucci

Read a great piece by my Italian friend Nunzia Garoffolo who has a blog called 'Fashion Beyond Fashion'. 

I briefly considered making everything in black for next Fall 2013, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, since I hardly wear black myself.  I recently made a hat from a shrunken boiled wool cardigan.  

I want to find more boiled wool to cut apart and rescue, to re-love into some amazing sculptural thing that you call a hat.

I would wear this outfit in a heartbeat.  I think my fish and snakeskin cocktail hats would go well with her clothing.

Macabre in Fashion.....

By Doramojzes from Hungary

In Millinery...

My snakeskin cocktail hat slipper hat in Anaconda Water Snake

Since Fishskin is not readily available, I've been delving into snakeskin hats!

When I heard the haunting eerie cello music of Hildur Gudnadottir, I immediately thought of a poem I once wrote entitled 'Melancholy Heavy', written after I had had my heart broken.  Since I don't have the 100 page document with all the poems I spouted out in a period from 2004 to 2006, I will write what I remember:

Melancholy Heavy
I try not to drink, I try not to think
I try not to think of you
Melancholy Heavy
could this be so lonely?

If you want to hear some more of my spoken word, I have a Soundcloud music composer page. Haven't you heard that Soundcloud is where it's at? Myspace is way dead!

Hildur Gudnadottir and her cello

Till next time, my lovelies! 

xoxo 
Jasmin 
Jasmin Zorlu Millinery
Sculptural Headwear for Earthlings
www.jasminzorlu.com
Brooklyn, New York, Earth