Philip Treacy
Philip Treacy
Philip Treacy OBEis an Irish milliner and designer based in London...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionDesigner
Date of Birth26 May 1967
CountryIreland
Somebody can feel elegant without being elegant. It's a personality.
change
My aim is to change people's perceptions of what a hat can look like in the 21st century.
intrigued preferred
The only person I never made a hat for was my mother because my mother didn't really - she preferred to make her own hats. I mean, she was intrigued by everything, but she didn't want one of my hats. She made her own.
bit people
When people come and visit me and have a hat made, it's a little bit like visiting a psychiatrist, but they don't actually realize that.
Hats are really for ultimate occasions, so when I make one, I try to do something different, something noticeable.
attend life occasions royals twice ultimate worn
Hats are for life's ultimate moments. They're worn at races, at weddings. Occasions many of us, who aren't royals and celebrities, only attend once or twice in a lifetime.
attached best hats lives people special
Hats are attached to special moments in people's lives - weddings, or the races. In difficult times, people still get married; they still want to look their best.
bringing develop either fruition gives laborious love people tactile
Hat-making is laborious and time-consuming. It's a very tactile medium, and you can develop the skills, but it's one of those things: you either have it, or you don't. I love bringing something to fruition with my hands that gives people pleasure.
design hats imagining kept love majesty minds
What I love most about Her Majesty is that she has kept hats alive in people's minds for more than 60 years. You can't think of her without imagining her with a hat or a crown. I would, of course, love to design one for her.
grew
I grew up in a little village in the west of Ireland.
gain sort
I was just, as a child, very different from the others, and didn't really care what they thought because you know, a child doesn't really have inhibitions; you sort of gain your inhibitions later.
century design promote
I'm representative of 21st century Irish design, so I promote Irishness all over the world wherever I go.
early nineties people saying women
I remember in the early nineties people saying the hat was just for old women, but that's ridiculous.
although believes enthusiasm gaga hat housewife lady love people romance wants
I love the romance of what I do, although because of Isabella, Lady Gaga and Grace Jones, people think I have crazy customers. Sometimes I get more enthusiasm from the housewife who wants a hat and believes in it.