I am thrilled to share that my hat Riccio has won prize for Innovative Use of Felt at the 2024 Design Award organised by the Worshipful Company of Feltmakers.
None of the judges had seen crocheted felt before and made for a great design.
Rachel Trevor-Morgan, milliner and judge of the competition
The Design Award runs annually and is open to millinery students, apprentices and those who are within the first two years of starting their own labels. The aim is to support individuals who aspire to become professional milliners.
This year’s judging panel included:
– Victoria Claridge, Millinery Buyer, Fenwick
– Victoria Grant, Milliner
– Rachel Trevor Morgan, Milliner
– Edwina Ibbotson, Milliner
– Eda Rose Lawson, Milliner
– William Horsman, Retired hat manufacturer
My entry is a headpiece called Riccio, made with crocheted felt on a wire structure.
In this piece I wanted to capture the dichotomy between the hardness and tenderness of life.
I found inspiration in observing one of the oldest survival strategies in our ecosystem, one where beautiful forms of life protect a precious element (e.g. their eggs, vital organs or fruits) by exposing a spiky surface to intimidate predators. The word Riccio in my native Italian encapsulates the essence of this concept and it can be used to describe multiple nuances of it (e.g. a conker, a hedgehog, curly hair, a sea urchin).
Sea urchins in particular have lived on this planet for 450 million years using this survival strategy. When a sea urchin dies it sheds all of its spikes, revealing a beautiful fivefold symmetry on its shell, which resembles a star. This piece portrays this transformation through a star-shaped wire structure adorned with crocheted strings of felt.
Fivefold symmetry is relatively rare in nature and is rooted in mathematics, which led me to explore crochet for its ability to repeat patterns. For the base of the hat and for the smaller barnacles I used a stitch called punto riccio – sea urchin stitch – with variations based on multiples of five. Once cut into yarns, felt proved to be the ideal material to crochet with as it’s soft and sturdy at the same time, creating the illusion of an almost biological piece.
Having grown up in Sicily, my creative process was also unconsciously influenced by the long summers spent observing marine creatures on the rocks, and learning traditional crafts like crochet.
Designing and making a sea urchin headpiece by crocheting felt wasn’t an easy creative choice to make; receiving the Feltmakers award for Innovative Use of Felt gave me confidence in my creative voice and has encouraged me to continue exploring my creative possibilities.
Winning this award was a dream come true and one that I could have never achieved without my teachers’ encouragement to push beyond my boundaries.
I wish to thank my teachers Vesna Pesic, Sarah Lomax and Rafa Peinador for their guidance.
Photos @fenicachambel
Model @lilith.devine.burlesque
Fishnets props @ghostfishinguk (please support them, they are an amazing charity!)
Roberta Cucuzza London 