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| Author Edgar Degas Public Domain Source Wikimedia Commons |
I mentioned The Creative Collective when it hosted Rita Britton in April 2024 (see Meeting Rita Britton, a Living Legend 9 April 2024). The Collectiive's guest this morning was milliner speaker and blogger Sherry Richardson, another South Yorkshire fashion influencer.
Sherry recounted her life and career before she became a milliner. She remembered a newspaper report about a millinery course and decided to enrol,. She hoped that it might be possible to sell a few hats to her friends, She brought two examples of her handiwork with her as well as a hatter's block which could be anything from 80 to 100 years old. In the course of Sherry's lecture, I remembered that I had been at school with David Shilling who famously made the most unusual hats for his mother. Sherry remembered him from a charity event at which he was the guest of honour.
In my previous article, I mentioned that Rita Britton had said that she was designing a bag listing Barnsley among the world's fashion capitals. Today I saw an example of that product with the latest signage which has evolved as follows:
BARNSLEY
That is not entirely tongue-in-cheek. There is a growing community of highly talented designers, makers and distributors in South Yorkshire.
Hats like Sherry's are probably protected from copying by copyright for the rest of Sherry's life plus 70 years as works of artistic craftsmanship. Designers with reputations should think about registering their brands as trade marks here and in every other country in which they have a market. Designs of items that are to be manufactured or licensed should be registered under the Registered Designs Act 1949.
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