Prizes for the Hatstruck Millinery Competition

I'm so excited about this Hatstruck millinery competition and the task of brainstorming the prizes I'll be awarding its winners; one of the prizes being a five section hat block.  I have an idea which hat block, or should I say I probably know which one I will be rewarding.  Can you guess which one?  It's the one I absolutely don't like.  Well it's winner can always sell it on Ebay.

As always when I get rid of one of my millinery items, I regret it somewhere down the road.  Now let me find more junk around here I can get rid of.  More to come;  you will be surprised.

For contest details, please visit my last blog post.

Millinery Competition--Elegant, Fun Couture Hats, 2014 Guidelines and Rules

High all!  Below are the refined rules and guidelines for one of the best millinery contests ever--at least in my head.  We will have crazy fun and wonderful prizes will be awarded to the winners.  Please read these rules and guidelines carefully.  If you have questions, please post them in the "Comments" section of this post. 

Totally unrelated....!  I couldn't resist Photoshopping another one of my hats onto First Lady Michelle Obama's head (see image below).  Since I doubt that she will ever be seen in a hat, other than when she is gardening, why not just have fun playing paper doll with a lovely First Lady.  I've done this before, and I really had fun doing it.  In order to give full credit to the image and the article that I copied it from, the story and original image can be found here.  If she sees this image and likes it, I would suggest that she give Anya Caliendo (my choice), Philip Treacy, or Stephen Jones a call.  Oh well, I can dream can't I.  OK, back to the business at hand, the millinery competition.


The Theme:  Elegant, Fun Couture Hats

 Who Qualifies to Enter the Contest: You must be a member of this site.  No Anonymous entries will be accepted.  Your screen name must be accompanied by your full name, if different, when your hat is submitted.  In other words, if you do not want anyone to know who you are, please do not enter.  After the contest, you may unfollow this blog site...but stick around if you like it.  I would be more than happy to have you.  Finally, THIS IS AN INTERNATIONAL CONTEST.

Mandel Ngan/Getty

Competition Dates:  Submissions accepted June 5 to August 15, 2014.  Deadline for submittals,  August 15, 11:59, Pacific time (West Coast, USA).

Number of Hats Accepted for Submission:  One (1).

Guidelines for Finished Hat:  The Hat must be made by the contestant, using any materials and techniques of her/his choice.

Images:  There must be at least four to five images submitted--front, back, side(s), and inside; unless the hat can be seen in its entirety with fewer images.

The hat must be made between June 5 and August 15.

Judges:  So far there are four (4) judges (maybe more to come).  These will be announced shortly.

The Prizes:  Millinery supplies (felts, straws, a hat block, hat stretchers, books, millinery trim, a cash prize, etc.).

Distribution of Prizes:  Best in Competition will pick his/her prize first; Second in Competition gets second pick.  Remaining prizes will be distributed as described in my previous post.
  
Winning Categories:  Best in Competition (highest score), Second in Competition (second highest scorer), Best Overall Design, Workmanship, Originality, Color, Presentation, Best Interpretation of Theme, Most Wearable, Honorable Mention, Judge's Choice (each judge will have her/his choice).

 Scoring--range 1 to 10 in each category (multiplied by point value):  Workmanship, 2 points; Design 1.5 points; all other categories 1 point.  The winners will be those having the highest scores.  If there is a tie between highest scorers (score after adding up all categories), those will be sent back to the judges for selection of the best from the highest scores.  Again, winners will only be chosen based on their scores, ALL SCORING BEING INDEPENDENT--JUDGE BY JUDGE.  The highest score after judges' scores have been added up and combined, will yield the winners; the TOP winners must score high in workmanship.
 
Hat Details:  If you are uncomfortable submitting construction details for your hat, that's quite acceptable.   However, outer details--basic materials used--should be submitted with your hat for description purposes.
. 
Where to Store Images?  I have created a group, Hatstruck Couture Millinery, on Facebook where  the images will be stored.  If you are not a Facebook member, please email the images to me at lduncan@hatstruck.com and I will post the images for you; however I would prefer that you post them to the group.

Note the image to your right, there are two references to photos.  Please note the correct location CIRCLED IN RED where you should store your images.

The "Photos" heading circled in the image, at the top of the Facebook Hatstruck Couture Millinery group page is the correct location to post your images. 

Click on "Photos" and create an album for your images.  Label your album as follows:

Hatstruck Couture Millinery 2014
Elegant, Fun Couture Millinery Competition

Your Name,

The Name of Your Hat (if any)

Hat Description

Have Fun!

Hatstruck Couture Millinery, Millinery Competition--Elegant, Fun Couture Hats, 2014

OK, I'm back.  In my last post I mentioned that I was going to conduct a millinery competition.  I must admit that all of the details have not been finalized, but the important thing is that there will be a competition and that there will be winners and fantastic prizes, most of the junk, sorry I mean prizes will be things that many milliners would love to have.  I'm just over flowing and I've decided to do a self intervention; I'm sure this will end when something else strikes my fancy.  Since I'm trying to generate some excitement around here, at least for a second, this will not be your conventional contest.  I hope you've noticed that I'm not a very conventional person.  This is my fantasy competition, except that you can't erase individual likes and dislikes, something that, no matter what, is still a part of decision making.

I couldn't post without a hat, and I didn't want to go into my hat archive, so I've started making the hat at your right.  It has not been completed yet, but I'll write more about it in another post.  Now to the competition stuff.

The Theme:  Elegant, Fun Couture Hats
Please, this is serious.  Only submit serious hats.  I have a board on Pinterest labeled "Millinery:  Fun Couture Hats.  There I pin hats that I feel are fun and unique and/or hats that I study and learn from, as I do on all of my boards.  Your idea of a fun couture hat may be different.  Please take a look.

Competition Dates:  June 5 to August 15, 2014
The deadline to submit your hats is 12:00 a.m., Pacific Standard Time--the States' West Coast--August 15, 2014.

Number of Hats to Submit
You are only allowed to submit one hat.  I feel that the load of more than one hat is just too much for the judges to deal with, at least for me that is.  Sorry, but at least you can make that one hat your best hat ever.

•  The hat must be made between June 5 and August 15 (like I can monitor that :) )

The Prizes
The prizes will consist of a variety of millinery supplies (straws, felts, hat stretchers, trim, etc.), an ugly, sorry, I mean a lovely five piece sectional hat block, books, etc., and a little cash if I have any, seriously, if I have any.

Distribution of Prizes
The Best in Competition will choose the prize of her/his choice first.  The Second in Competition will choose her/his choice second.  Prizes for the remaining winners will be written on paper and pulled from a bucket.  I said I was unconventional, didn't I?  One time I won the highest place in a competition, but I would have loved to have received the second place prize.  Also, I once won at a lower level but I felt that the prize I received was better; so, why not let the highest winners pick the prizes of their choice.

The Judges and Judging--To Be Announced at Later Date
There will be from three to five judges; I will be one of them.  Why three to five?  Because I'm biased as to what I like, and I really would like to have judges of varying tastes.  A score card will be distributed to the judges, and each category can be given a one to 10 rating, with workmanship weighted to two.  So it would be possible to get a score of 10 in each category, except in workmanship with a possible rating of up to 20.

• Categories:  Workmanship, Originality, Balance (overall appearance), Color (remember that color means more than bright vibrant colors), Presentation, Theme Appropriateness; and standing on it's own, Judge's Choice.

The winners will be those having the highest scores.  If there is a tie between highest scorers, those will be sent back to the judges for further consideration.  Hopefully, with a range of one to ten and two to 20, this will not occur.  Winners will only be chosen based on their scores, ALL SCORING BEING INDEPENDENT.  So, the total highest score after all categories have been added up, will yield the winners.


Winning Categories (Tentative--I may have to work on this.)
 Best in Competition, Second in Competition, Most Innovative, Most Representative of Theme, Workmanship (weighted--this must be high in order to win Best in Competition), Best Overall Design, Individual Judge's Choice (three to five--OH YES!).  I was in a competition once, having three judges, where two judges chose my hat and one felt that another should win Best in Show.  One of the judges kept moving the award from my hat until the other two judges gave in.  Another time one of three judges said that he preferred my hat.  This happens all the times with others.  So this is a chance for each judge to pick her/his choice.


You must be a follower of this site and you must live on this planet; so yes all are welcome to submit a hat no matter where you live in the world.  If you decide to unfollow this site, that is totally up to you.  However, I would love for you to stick around.

You must submit at least four views of your hat and the images must be clear--front, back, side, and underside--unless the design of the hat does not call for four.

Hat Details

If you are uncomfortable submitting construction details for your hat, that's quite acceptable.   However, outer details--fabric used--should be submitted with your hat for description purposes (for example, my hat above:  Feather cocktail hat, supported with vintage crinoline (crin) tubing and headband, trimmed with a red feather--or something like that.

Where to Store Images?
I have created a group, Hatstruck Couture Millinery, on Facebook where most of the images will be stored.  If you are not a FB member, please email the images to me at
lduncan@hatstruck.com; however I would prefer that you post them to the group.

Note on the image to your right that there are two references to photos.  The "Photos" circled in the image is the correct location to post your images.  Click on "Photos" and create an album for your images.  Label your album as follows:

Hatstruck Couture Millinery 2014
Elegant, Fun Couture Millinery Competition," YourNameHere
HatMaterialsHere (outer covering--see above under Hat Details for an explanation).  If these instructions are not clear please leave me a comment on this post.

A Suggestion for Newbies
I figure that all of us are at different levels in our millinery journey.  Some may not possess the workmanship skills, but may have great design skills, or they may be very innovative.  I would love for all to be comfortable submitting a hat.  I must admit that I have a thing for workmanship.  However, in the real world innovation and design may many times win out; actually they are extremely important because workmanship can be mechanical.  But in order to win the Best in Competition, workmanship must be in place.  So if you are new to millinery I would suggest that you don't tackle something that is beyond your skill level.  It would still be possible to make an absolutely beautiful hat, well designed and neat, and still win the big prize, provided that you stick to this suggestion.   Also, I have a another Pinterest board, Millinery: How Other Milliners and Hatters Do It, where I pin many millinery techniques that I find on the Web, some are merely references for my followers, as I don't always agree with some of the techniques and/or workmanship, but you will also find some good things there.  Do some research and practice. 

Good Luck!  I'm sure I will have to revise some of this stuff.