We always have hundreds of pieces of millinery available to purchase and take away with you immediately, but if you want to opt for a bespoke made to order hat, we do ask for 6 weeks lead time
…..making your hat doesn’t physically take 6 weeks….
….but…..
Until we know your order, we don’t know what materials we will need, some materials come from all over the world so can take up to 3 weeks to arrive with us, to be mindful of costs and our carbon footprint we also wait to be able will bundle several client material orders together.
The multitude of skills and techniques used in millinery means that most of the time your hats aren’t made in one sitting but in several parts over several weeks, allowing for aspects such as waiting for materials, dying time (rarely successful on the first attempt!) drying time and using the expertise in different areas with our part time team members who may only be available a couple of times a week.
We have many other orders in our order book that also all need completing to deadlines which we also need to honour in a timely manor.
We open our diary to customer consultations 5 days a week and in the busy periods these get pretty booked up…..which means the time we can spend in the studio to create your orders is limited, which in turn impacts how quickly we can create your order.
As we also sell from our stock pieces of millinery, in between creating our bespoke orders and client consultations we are also busy trying to create millinery to keep our stock levels up to service our ‘off the shelf’ clients to ensure we always have a full array of colours and shapes available to ‘buy now’.
There is nothing like the stress of a client a week before a very important life occasion, a minimum 6 week lead-time allows for this and for us to have it finished for you in plenty of time for your event with no last minute stress or panics!
By not feeling rushed or stressed by a bespoke commission not only can we do a better job, but everyone, including you, can enjoy the experience more. Being successfully creative is hard under pressure.
With all of that… is 6 weeks enough time?
Yes through the years we have worked out that this is a timeframe that we know we can comfortably always meet….. when dealing with one day (often once in a lifetime) events…..deadlines aren’t something that we can ever afford miss! And we aren’t in the business of letting you down.
However, if you can give us more than a 6 week lead time we will love you even more…..
What if you don’t have a 6 week lead time…… Don’t panic….we have over 450 pieces of millinery in stock at the moment in a whole array of colours, shapes and sizes, which can be purchased off the shelf. All of these pieces can also be tweaked at short notice to tie in more with outfits if required.