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“Claire Strickland’s designs have an old world charm. An understated captivation and romance that fuses vintage shapes with modern wearability.”
Claire is our in house milliner and headdress maker. Her charismatic and slightly eccentric hats are limited edition and exclusive to Wall & Jones.
Her designs are often drawn from the intriguing patterns found in the world - rust splatters, gravel, tree bark, pavement cracks, leaves, flowers, distressed lace and Victorian manhole covers. Colours are influenced by dusky summer sunsets, tropical fish and Bauhaus paintings.
Claire’s hats are usually designed with an asymmetric flourish and vibrant sweep. Small perching cocktails hats, festival headbands, soft shlunky pull on beanies and casual everyday tiaras, are constructed from all sorts of materials.
Felt, straw, paris net, vintage ribbons, brass, waxed printmaker’s card, military buttons, perspex, leather, wood and plaited silk - she uses them all to create the spectacle and delight of millinery.
Claire dip dyes feathers, molds silk organza with hot flower tools, pins felt into wooden blocks and stipples tinted varnishes. Decorative collages are formed, to laser cut and engrave onto offbeat embellishments. She steams, shapes, presses and pulls fabric by hand, and never ever uses mass produced factory blocked bases.
Instead Claire regularly carves her own millinery blocks, influenced by the research she gathers from specialist costume libraries, archives and exhibitions.
Claire Strickland trained at The London College of Fashion and Bretton Hall, followed by a 5 year apprenticeship at Royal Warrant holders Lock & Co Hatters where she learnt the craft of traditional hat making.
As well as creating her own designs, she makes custom headwear for theatre and film costume designers. They have entertained audiences in Dr Who, The Globe, English National Opera and many more.
All of her pieces are made by Claire in her London studio. To see them pop into Wall & Jones, Hackney Road, London. The shop is close to Hoxton, Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. To see her commissions for stage and screen go to www.clairestrickland.com.
Bird wing mask and customised helmet by Claire Strickland. Commissioned by stylist Seta Niland, photographed by Ram Shergill for The Protagonist Magazine.
Multicoloured acrylic star hat and slouchy corduroy beanie by Claire Strickland
Animal print ‘Persephone’ percher hat and ‘Brizo’ beret by Claire Strickland. Brizo beret photographed by Doh Lee, Persephone percher photographed by Arat Komsawadichai, both for Sodium Magazine.
Saturated neon pink ‘Emmeline’ hat by Claire Strickland. Created for a collaboration project ‘The Suffragettes : Millennial Rebels’ with wet plate collodion artist Nicolas Laborie.
Wall & Jones also stocks these other original, creative and unusual headwear designers…
Future Heirlooms
Accessories inspired by times gone by. Infusing today's fashion with the style and elegance of bygone eras, limited edition and bespoke pieces combine contemporary design with antique class.
Femininity unites with edge in exotic opulence, the fleeting with the eternal; through pieces that balance what is current with the nostalgia of golden times. In drawing inspiration from decadent eras and trends of the past, through experimenting and reworking vintage prints, colours, shapes and embellishments; pieces entice the wearer to indulge in the theatrics of fashion.
Celebrating all femininity, items transcend the decades that inspire them and place the power and aesthetic in the woman who wears them.