Chapeaux & Champagne – The millinery event

Designer of Millinery

For those who don’t yet know, I’m also the milliner behind the label velvet&tonic. It’s all part of my pursuit of becoming the most creative person I can be. Having a photography background has actually helped me develop my style when it comes to my millinery. We’ve been to so many race events and have taken so many photos of different millinery that it’s given me a sense of what I want from my own millinery creations. Finally, I took the leap and launched velvet&tonic just before the last Spring Racing Carnival. I’m so thrilled that I did as it has brought me so much joy and I now can be satisfied that I have fulfilled my life long dream of becoming a designer.

Creative Minds

One of the upsides of being a milliner is that I get to know and hang out with other creative and talented people! Just as a crazy idea, some of those lovely Melbourne creatives (Anita Marshall Millinery, Hatricks By Michelle, Lisa Hughes Millinery) and I got together and decided to put together a millinery showcase of our new designs! It was months in the planning and preparation. By the time the event came around, we were all exhausted! Running on adrenaline, we breezed through the event and came out of it full of pride at what we had achieved. All our guests had such a great time and our millinery was so well received!

The generosity of Sponsors and Friends

What made our event even more special were our sponsors who kindly and generously donated products. We had a gift voucher from The Online Bag Lady, which will have the winner of our best-dressed guest accessorised perfectly for her next racing event. Melbourne Racing Club generously donated two double passes to their Caulfield Guineas and Caulfield Cup race days. The lovely Angel and Russell from Amazing Graze Flowers came and created some beautiful bouquets for the best-dressed guest and to adorn our event. They also gave us a gorgeous floral arrangement to attach to our rustic arbour which was fabulous for photos. Then there was Steffen and his assistant David (Serious Pizzas), who brought in his pizza oven and cooked up a storm for us. Nobody left hungry!

With four designer hats up for raffle prizes, we raised $700 in raffle sales. This will all be heading to our chosen charity, Fitted For Work, who help disadvantaged women find employment. Big thanks to Jo who greeted our guests and generated some further raffle sales at the event. Thank you to the lovely Doris who assisted us with setting up and made sure that our drinks were topped up all throughout the event! I can’t forget to mention my wonderful husband who willingly gave up his house for a couple of days so that we could hold the event here. He also ran around and photographed it beautifully, doubling up as serving staff when he was needed! We couldn’t have done it without you all there to help us.

An Unforgettable Millinery Event

Our lovely guests came beautifully dressed, enjoyed the hospitality on offer and tried on our millinery. It makes our hearts sing to hear praises coming from all of our guests! It’s what drives designers to keep doing what we do! The countless hours spent on these creations and the resulting sore fingers were all worth it. Four lucky ladies walked away with a hat each (Doris Jovic, Dee Beat, Janine Langley and Em Scodellaro) and some other guests got the consolation prizes of tickets for the Caulfield Racing Carnival. Elyan Shotbolt won our Best-Dressed guest prize looking amazing in a lace outfit finished off with a vintage hat.

The event was a great success. Each milliner was left buzzing and inspired from it. We’re so glad we came together to collaborate on this event which none of us would have done alone. There’s so much we all want to achieve with our millinery and it’s so good to have each other for support. We’re all looking forward to the upcoming Spring Racing Carnival at Caulfield and at Flemington where we can be immersed in all the wonderful millinery which others have created.

Hope to see you out there!