Hats and Headpieces are Becoming a High Fashion Necessity By Jim Weaver Photo: Eric Danzinger  Birgit Sophie Metzger Label |
A Young Designer Birgit Sophie Metzger from Esslingen, an ancient town near Suttgart, Germany, has been making beautiful hats for more than a decade. But, she has her mind set on something more. With perseverance and creativity, Metzger is working her way into the world of high fashion. Her stylish creations for women and men are sophisticated, classic, and even exotic designs -her headpieces- for every day wear or evening dress. She has been producing her own collection under the Szenario Birgit Sophie Metzger Label since 1991. She opened a retail shop and studio off the main square in Esslingen in 1995. Called Szenarioshop, it has attracted customers from Japan, the U.S., South Africa, Austria, Switzerland, as well as Germany.  All Szenario hats are handmade from Metztger’s own designs using fine traditional materials like silk, cashmere, lambskin; rabbit hair felt, Florentine straw, and feathers. She also introduces unexpected elements like cling film, plastic, real pearls, and even gold. “For me,” she says, “a material must be real and manipulated as little as possible. I don’t see myself as a designer or artisan alone, but also as an artist.” Metzger recently collaborated with a goldsmith to create a collection of precious hats and headpieces. Hats are not a fashion necessity as they once were, Metzger explains. “But I belong to the young generation of German hat designers who no longer view this as a shortcoming, but see it as an opportunity for a new definition of individuality. I want to preserve the hat as a cultural asset, as something living, constantly developing and contribute my creativity to recapturing its proper in fashion.” It’s unlikely the hat will ever die as an accessory since it offers such great potential for drawing attention to the face. An old saying goes, “If you want to get ahead and get noticed, wear a hat.”
The fashion industry, once centered in Paris and New York, is now a worldwide enterprise. Twice a year, in Paris, PREMIERE CLASSE stages Europe`s most unique fashion accessory event. A selection of designer and commercial brands are showcased including hats, shoes, gloves, and handbags. Admission to the show is through live presentations to a selection committee. Metzger has already participated at the show. She has also shown her hats and headpieces at fashion events in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Dusseldorf and at Galeria Slavic http://www.galerie-slavik.com/seiten_en/ausstellung_e.html in Vienna, Austria. Her hats have also been seen in numerous fashion shows and on a German television soap opera.
Metzger’s hats have been featured in fashion trade journals in Germany, France, and Great Britain. She has also been featured on German national television and on television shows in Austria and Australia. A recent film production on the History of Hats featured several of her hats and headpieces.
A strikingly attractive woman, Metzger models her own hats. Working with a talented young photographer, Eric Danzinger, and even with an excellent make-up-stylist, Mrs. Florencia Vargas, she presents her creations in a highly dramatic manner that adds to their allure. In 1991, Metzger took her first collection (only six styles) to the biggest fashion fair in Germany at the time. On a creative impulse she had changed her hats from velvet to cashmere achieving a cleaner, more German look. When a buyer from Ludwig Beck (women’s fashion retailer) in Munich ordered 2000 DM worth, she felt like she was in heaven.
Then her real work began. Metzger located a studio and hired a tailor and a milliner to work for her. She also began her continuing struggle against the idea that hats are only for elderly women or should be cheap. Headpieces are works of fantasy. Little hats mostly made from feathers, they are sophisticated fashion statements for evening wear. The idea comes from cocktail headpieces mostly from 1950s in New York City. “So the idea is not really new, but my interpretation is original,” she said. Today all the top designers are make headpieces.
Since the beginning, Metzger’s headpieces have been highly original and creative. They are small, often made of feathers, and easily worn with a hair clip. She now work with a goldsmith to make jeweled headpieces with diamonds, real pearls, and gold or silver. You might think of them as “jewelry for the head. Many fashionable women now wear headpieces for wedding as bride or guest, since they are much easier to wear than a big hat. Others wear them to concerts or theater or to dress parties or fancy balls. Women can place them easily in their hair, without help of a hairdresser.
In Spring 2007, Metzger presented her work in a highly successful show at the Wurttemberg State Museum in Stuttgart exhibiting with H.R.H. Diane von Wurttemberg, a member of the royal family and precious metals artist. Metzger was also recently featured on another German television special. You can view more of her work www.birgitsophiemetzger.com/index. |