J Smith Esquire

Milliner Justin Smith worked for five years as a hairdresser at Toni & Guy in London, quickly becoming a Creative Director responsible for award-winning avant-garde collections. He later established his own private salon in London called 'And People Like Us'. He turned to hat making in 2000 and began part-time millinery training. He gained a distinction on the millinery course at Kensington & Chelsea College in 2005, won 2006's Hat Designer Of The Year competition and has recently given his end-of-year show for his MA at London's Royal College Of Art.

Nasir Mazhar

"I try to create a world for myself, but I know real life subconsciously seeps in and has its effect," declares Nasir Mazhar, currently the brightest star in London's galaxy of young designer talent, and the creator of the spiked headguard that Madonna sported on her Dazed & Confused cover shot and the Orb headgear that Lady Gaga rocked on the cover of V Magazine and in her Bad Romance video. The 25-year-old headgear designer started out as a hair-stylist with Vidal Sassoon before turning to theatrical design to fulfil his desire to work in a more highly conceptualised way.

His work ethic is as idiosyncratic as his personal aesthetic. Mazhar claims his main inspiration is the city he lives and works in, but he likes to weave stories for his pieces.

Mazhar's blurring of the arcane and the modern comes together in a collection that swoops from dramatically draped medieval hennins and crimson cardinal hats, to Hannibal Lecter-esque muzzle masks and nuclear decontamination hoods and visors. That presentation marked him out as part of an upsurge of creativity and methodology on the East End design scene that has eschewed the "street style" and "hipster" mentality, which has been so prominent on the Hoxton circuit, for something more fundamentally artisanal.

via Independent UK

Franc Fernandez

Franc Fernandez created pieces to wear to parties Downtown, and was subsequently contacted by Brian Lichtenberg, who commissioned Fernandez for his spring 09 show. There was no missing the caged, architectural headgear. The designer explains its inception:

"The line really started with Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Goude's video for 'Libertango'...She wears a dunce hat in the shape of a tall, sharp pyramid, but it gets taken off in the beginning and you don't really see it. That image has always stuck in my mind."

Then came music artists like Ebony Bones, Beyonce and Lady Gaga. The future is so bright for Franc right now..... watch out !!!

Søren Bach

RCA trained milliner, Søren Bach, originally began his career as a hairstylist and has been working commercially as a hairdresser for over 20 years. After graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2007, Bach garnered fame for his imaginative and conceptual millinery.

Bach’s projects span from designing hats worn by Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss in editorials shot by Mario Testino, to working with Danish singer Lene Nystrøm and Grace Jones to name but a few.