Hat Making Process

Its was a suggestion during my final major project review to look at hat making to aid the design process. I went hat shopping this week to look for different types of hats. I visited john Lewis to view their hats, i found most of their hats were made with a mesh like material and wire, this made the hat very light and comfortable, which is something i need to make sure my hat is. This visit made me think about the process of making my church hat and whether i could use hair as mesh like fabric to recreate a light and comfortable hat like the elaborate hats at john or whether it maybe too difficult and time consuming to pull of. I looked at the millinery process and a popular material used during hat making is Buckram. Buckram is a material using to stiffing fabric and is often used in hat making. I thought about using Buckram to make a hat then just covering it in hair, however due to the cost of Buckram decided on just using the hair as the only material and seeing how far i could get only using that using Buckram as a alternative if it doesn't work.