ABOUT

How it started

Jenny began making hats when she lived in Thailand, although her story starts long before that.

She’s had an eclectic background; she’s written a novel, worked in education, the charity sector and as a copywriter. But all along the way, on the side and in the background, she has been a maker.

She grew up with parents who made costumes and props for a local theatre group and so she always made too. A three year classics degree was inspiring but it left her with a vague sense that what she really wanted to do was to make a Medusa headdress and some classical helmets.

Becoming a parent enabled her to make costumes and even the occasional headpiece. She loved World Book Day and ‘Dress as a Victorian/Roman’, and with two small children in school, she did what she had always really wanted to do: a materials-led, fine art course, specialising in sculpture. The concept of ‘craft’ at that time was unfashionable, and anything too pretty was viewed with suspicion. With doctors spread liberally through her family, she made sculpture about the body and its function. She was making casts and objects from the body, but had not yet put anything on the head.

Then came the twelve-year stint in Bangkok. Having no work permit she threw herself into other activities, one of which was making hats for fundraising events. After six or seven years of designing and creating pieces for the Bangkok celebration of Melbourne Cup, and other parties, finally she knew what she wanted to do: she wanted to make sculptures for the head.

After several years of short courses and one-to-one training in both Australia and the UK, Jenny enrolled on the full time Millinery HNC at Kensington and Chelsea College.

Now based in London, Jenny works from her studio near Borough.