A tip o’ the hat to the Millinery Certificate Program


This spring representatives of Milliners Guild Inc. came to FIT to pay homage and help promote the Millinery Certificate program. It’s the very program, according to Vasilios Christofilakos, chair of Accessories Design, that helped launch the careers of many of today’s top milliner designers such the Guild’s current president Linda Ashton

Vasilios Christofilakos, Accessories Design Chair & Linda Ashton, Milliners Guild president

“I was incredibly lucky when I became Chair of Accessories Design Department because of the stir of Kate Middleton and Prince William,” says Vasilios. “The royal wedding stirred an intense interest in hats again. It brought a new energy and crop of milliners seeking technical and design expertise. We had a flood of applicants and established milliners wanting to guest lecture and teach.”

The program has been going strong ever since.

Vasilios wears a hat designed and constructed by Sandra Gonzales, a Millinery Certificate holder. “My jockey-inspired felt cap with Swarovski crystals strategically placed, forms the letter “V”.

Ms. Ashton wears one of her own designs.

 

Read Vasilios’ recent comments about the increased interest in millinery in New York Times article: “All the Trimmings Are the Main Course.”

 


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