Gigi Burris Millinery: Hand-Blocked Felt Hats From New York

Gigi Burris grew up in central Florida wearing vintage hats, which feels like the right beginning. She went to Parsons to study ready-to-wear, spent a semester in Paris learning about couture craft, and came home obsessed with millinery. Two weeks after she graduated in 2009, Rihanna borrowed pieces from her senior collection for a W magazine shoot. She took her label full-time in 2012.

Every hat is still hand-blocked in New York, shaped over wooden forms using a centuries-old technique, and you can see it in the felt. The Laura pillbox has a composed, almost formal energy that works with a clean coat. The Lauren wool-felt flat cap is the easy one, and the Waverly fedora asks for a longer line and a quieter collar.

Straw is where Burris gets playful. The Ora straw sunhat gives real shade and makes a plain linen dress look deliberate, which is exactly what a summer hat should do. The Ines visor is sportier, the Sharina cap is the one to throw in a tote, and the Tenley braided turban is for the days you want people to ask.

Burris also co-founded Closely Crafted, a nonprofit that supports American fashion artisans, and that care for the craft shows here. My advice is not to build a whole character around a hat. Wear it with the clothes already in your rotation and see how it changes their proportions. That is when you find out whether you are a hat person.

A Gigi Burris hat does the job an entire outfit usually has to do, which is give a look a center of gravity. That is also why I would buy one, not three. Felt shapes like the pillbox and fedora want clean tailoring or a simple coat underneath, while the straw styles earn their keep through shade and ease in summer. The hand-blocked craft is real, but it is not a reason to treat the hat like a museum piece, and hats that sit in boxes do nobody any good. Find the shape that makes your everyday coat look more like you, then wear it on a normal Tuesday and see who notices.