Ane de Cocó makes hats by hand in Spain, to measure, for people who mostly arrive convinced that hats do not suit them.
She works in a craft that used to be compulsory and is now optional, which is exactly why it interests us. For centuries a hat told strangers where you stood in the world before you opened your mouth. Then it stopped being required, and what remains is a pure decision: an object you put on your head only because you want to.
We wrote to her because millinery sits on the fastest edge of appearance.
Nothing else a person can put on changes a face so quickly. A jacket takes a moment to read. A hat lands instantly, on the part of the body everyone is already looking at. That makes a workroom in Spain a good place to ask what appearance actually does to people, and what happens in the second they see themselves differently.
What follows is her own account, lightly edited, in her words.
She answered at length, and the most interesting parts are not about hats at all. They are about trust, about the fear of being noticed, and about one design she still cannot explain.
When someone orders a made-to-measure hat, what do they say they want, and what do you end up seeing that they never said?
Someone who orders a made-to-measure hat usually knows why they have come to me. Some have been searching for a long time and simply cannot find a hat they identify with, others are looking for a hat that resembles an ideal from their past, and some simply want something unique.
But behind what they ask for, I often see something they do not actually say: they need trust. They need to trust that I will understand them and create a hat that truly feels right for them.
A hat has presence and attracts attention, and to wear one well you need to feel confident in it. My job does not end with making a hat that suits someone. When they put it on, it has to feel as though it belongs to them.
A hat changes a face faster than almost anything else a person can put on. Could you describe a fitting where you watched someone’s posture or expression change the moment it went on?
This has happened to me many times, and not only with clients. Sometimes I meet friends for an afternoon in the countryside or at someone’s home, and I take a hat with me so I can continue sewing while we talk.
When they see what I am working on, they almost always want to try it on. Many start by saying that they are not hat people, or that hats simply do not suit them. Then they look in the mirror and are surprised.
It is wonderful to watch that moment: their expression changes, the way they look at themselves changes, even the way they hold themselves changes. Curiously, some of them still would not dare to wear the hat out in public, even though they love the way they look in it.
A hat doesn’t just change your appearance, it can even change the look in your eyes.
Weddings and special occasions mean people wear hats on the days they are most looked at. What does that pressure do to the choices they make?
My style is classic, with clean lines and not too much ornamentation. Most of my clients want to feel elegant. They do not necessarily want to attract too much attention, but they do want to leave an impression.
A wedding or special occasion also gives them the opportunity to wear a hat or headpiece they probably would not wear in everyday life. It allows them to be a little more daring, but without ceasing to feel like themselves.
Spain has a long relationship with headwear. What of it survives in what you make now, and what did you deliberately leave behind?
Spain has a very rich and diverse tradition of hatmaking, and I don’t think there is a single Spanish style. Even within Spain there are very different ways of understanding and wearing hats.
In my case, I don’t feel that I have deliberately left tradition behind. Quite the opposite. I am very attracted to the old craft: the techniques, the materials, the handwork and the way hats were constructed to last. In that sense, I am quite traditional.
I believe you can learn and deeply respect a traditional craft without having to reproduce a particular aesthetic. Technique belongs to the craft, style belongs to the individual hatmaker.
My own style starts from classic forms and looks for a restrained elegance, with clean lines and carefully considered ornamentation.
How do you know a hat is finished? What tells you it has crossed from correct to right?
For me, a hat isn’t finished simply because I have technically reached the end of the process. If I look at it and something doesn’t feel perfect, I can undo it and start again.
I am very demanding about finishing. I need the stitches to be clean, a bow to be perfectly sewn, the brim properly pressed and every detail exactly where it should be. These may be things the person wearing the hat will never notice, but I know they are there.
A hat is finished when I can look at it and no longer feel the need to touch anything. Only then can I rest easy.
Hats are one of the few things people insist they cannot pull off. Where do you think that belief comes from, and how often does it hold up in your workroom?
Whenever someone tells me that hats don’t suit them, I tell them that they probably just haven’t found the right hat yet.
I also think we often judge hats out of context. Trying on an occasion hat without the dress, hairstyle or make-up you will wear with it is completely different. In the same way, a summer hat can look strange with winter clothes, and vice versa. The whole look changes our perception of the hat.
In all my years as a milliner, I have found only one exception. A woman came into my shop absolutely convinced that no hat suited her. I had her try on practically the entire shop, and I had to admit that she was right. Nothing worked. So at least once, that belief turned out to be true.
When you wear one of your own hats out, how does being looked at feel different from being the one who made it?
I love wearing hats, they are part of the way I dress. I wear them especially often in winter, when I can play with sailor hats, berets, headbands, fedoras and small fitted hats. In summer I tend to wear boaters, straw fedoras and visors.
Today, people are simply not used to seeing someone walking down the street wearing a real hat, so inevitably it attracts attention.
Sometimes I enjoy those looks, sometimes they make me a little self-conscious, and occasionally I even wonder, do they think I’m trying to attract attention? When you walk into a place wearing a hat and nobody else is wearing one, you know you are going to stand out.
But that has never stopped me from wearing one. I would love to see many more people wearing hats, and perhaps one day something that was completely ordinary for so long will stop seeming extraordinary.
Which hat of yours can you least explain, and why does it still work?
There is one hat that was born from a mistake. While I was making it, I cut the brim too short, and it ended up much smaller than I had intended. I was so disappointed because I thought I had ruined the hat.
I decided to finish it anyway and photographed it for my shop, convinced that I would probably never sell it. To my surprise, it sold. So I made another one, and that sold too. Today it is still one of the designs I offer.
I can’t really explain why it works, because its proportions came from a mistake rather than a design decision. Perhaps that is the explanation: sometimes craftsmanship is also about recognising when a mistake has created something you could never have planned.
Three things worth taking from this conversation.
First, that people who say a thing does not suit them have almost always tested it in the wrong conditions. Second, that the moment appearance changes is visible from the outside, in the posture and the eyes, before anyone says a word about it. And third, that a mistake, once it is finished properly, can be indistinguishable from a decision. Aesthetics is not the pursuit of perfection but the removal of the false note, and sometimes the note you thought was false turns out to be the whole reason the thing works.
Ane de Cocó works in Spain and makes hats to measure, shipping worldwide: anedecoco.net