Louisville Magazine

APR 2014

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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1 0 0 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 4.14 infuence the way a person was perceived by the world. Tis anthropological study led her to open Sarah Havens Millinery (she makes men's hats too) two years ago at the Hope Mills studio space on Kentucky Street, near Ninth south of Broadway. Since that time, her work has become a staple of the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft and the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. When designing, Havens pulls from history. "I try to take infuences from traditional styles and create my own look," she says, "but I also have an eye to comfort, durability and portability." She looks for "purity of form" while designing for someone with "the moxie to wear a fabulous hat." In the end, she says, she wants "to make someone's favorite hat that will last a lifetime." See Haven's hats at sarahshats.com or at Gifthorse, the Craft Gallery or the Pink Boutique. ABBIE DWELLE, haberdasher "A hat is good for the soul," Abbie Dwelle, 27, tells me, "and this town seems to have a lot of soul." When Dwelle came to Louisville last year as part of a Derby pop-up shop, she was impressed by the city's local spirit, and she and her partners at Paul's Hat Works in San Francisco started to play with the idea of opening a Derby City branch. She found that a storefront in Butchertown, the city's oldest neighborhood with newly revived spirit, ft the future/past idea and was just the place for a haberdashery. (She makes ladies' hats too.) A native of South Dakota, Dwelle had never made a hat in her life when fate tipped its cap her way. A roommate wandered into a century-old hat shop in San Francisco that was often closed and deserted and found that it was for sale, the caveat being that the business was to stay intact. Te owner would teach the new owners the tools of the trade, using age-old trim tools, blockers and shapers, and pass on the secrets he had learned from his many years in the business. "Tis is unheard of," Dwelle says. "Haberdashers are notoriously secretive." Te idea seemed crazy, but Dwelle and three other friends decided to shoot the moon. Tey brought Paul's Hat Works into the new millennium. Te previous owner "gave us a great education," she says, teaching not only the invention but also the ideology. When she crafted her frst hat, a tall bowler, she ended up wearing it for years. "I love that we are making real things that will last," she says. She considers her work sculpture for the head. "Anybody can put a hat together," she says. "But the art is in the touch, something inexplicable that makes a terrifc hat." Dwelle came into her own as a haberdasher when she found herself going beyond what she had been taught, manifesting her own ideas, dictating her own shapes and style. As for Louisville, she thinks the city and her shop are a great union. "Hats are an item where the future and the past interact," she says. "Louisville is a bit like that, the past and the present moving to the future, and as a hat maker, I can be the historian." Paul's Hat Works is at 1319 Story Ave. Visit hatworksbypaul.com or call 561-0080 for information. 98-111.indd 100 3/20/14 12:17 PM

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