Open 10am – 6pm everyday
400 Epson Road,
Flemington (Melbourne)

From 1 – 31 December there will be a Millinery exhibition at Port Philip Art Gallery, St. Kilda Melbourne. Works on sale in aid of the Blue Hat Project.

Courses:
Torb and Reiner

- July 19th and 20th Hervey Bay ,Qld
- September 1st to 8th Melbourne, Champion Race Museum
- October 18th and 19th Sydney at the Powerhouse museum

Torb and Reiner have also started offering some Millinery courses online via their website.

International Millinery Forum

January 2009
Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia.

The list of tutors for the Forum include:

Eugenie Van Oirschot – The Netherlands
Jean Carroll OAM– Sydney
Peter Jago – Melbourne
Peggy Stone – Sydney
Liz Evans – Canberra
Phillip Rhodes – Melbourne
Carol Wilkes – Queensland
Jane Stoddart – Sydney
Neil Grigg – Sydney
Waltraud Reiner – Melbourne
Louise McDonald – Melbourne
Serena Lindeman – Melbourne
Maris Herr – Wagga Wagga
Georgina Conheady – Melbourne

GRAMPIANS TEXTURE, 21-26 February 2009.
Set in the beautiful Halls Gap and Wartook Valley in the Grampians National Park of western Victoira. Two-day or four-day workshops available from tutors like India Flint, Wendy Lugg, Ruth Hadlow, Keith Lo Bue, Rose Kingsmill, Liz Evans, Jan Irvine-Nealie, Jude Skeers, Colleen Weste, Jane Siddall, Yvonne Twining, Mary French, Susan Mathews and Ilka White. Bookings and further information from grampianstextue@gmail.com Phone (03) 5356.4616.

Image by Robban Andersson via Flickr

I received my international millinery forum postcard yesterday in the mail. It doesn’t have really anymore information than I already knew. Here are the details from the card.

International Millinery Forum – 17-22 January 2009, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia

It states the following

Regional Australia’s premiere event for milliners and fashion enthusiasts

- Learn from the worlds leading milliners in hands on workshops

- Source the latest trends at the Trade Expo

- Inspiration derived from seminars and demonstrations

- Network with budding and professional milliners from all parts of the globe.

- Enjoy a fun and social atmosphere

For Further details contact

Email: millineryforum@bigpond.com

Phone: 0439 192 193

www.internationalmillineryforum.com.au

I tried the website just before and it still appears to be under construction.

Living in Canberra there are not many options for buying millinery supplies, sure you can buy fabric from spotlight or lincraft and some proper millinery lining from addicted to fabric, but sinamay and felt or straw capelines or hoods, even proper grosgrain ribbon is hard to find. Unless I have a trip planned for Melbourne or Sydney I normally have to resort to buying what I need on line or by calling up Preston’s in Melbourne to order.

I like to buy from a website that has an easy to use store and where it is obvious that the payment methods are secure or that they use paypal or similar secure payment method.

The site I use most is De Lew Designs as their site is easy to use, they have a range of good quality millinery supplies, and the service has always been excellent. The store has a range of sinamays, feathers, felt and straw hoods as well as numerous other materials. I sometimes order the cheaper felt hoods to experiment new designs on.

If I order from Preston’s in Melbourne I often look at their page on the internet with the colours of their product so I at least have some idea of the colour of product that I will receive. If buying two colours of sinamay that are to be put together I will ask if they go together.

The biggest problem when ordering products from afar is colour, the colour on the web is never exact and I have brought feathers that I thought were a rose pink colour only to have them arrive hot pink and sinamay that looked a natural purple to find it was much brighter. For this reason I attempt to buy products in person when possible.

In the future I want am looking at buying products from Torb and Reiner in Melbourne to try some of the products unique to their store. Such as Jinsin and raffia and straw cloth.

If you can recommend any millinery suppliers or have had experience purchasing millinery supplies on line please leave a comment.