Hats to lift the spirits
- Katharina's style is sculptural, not decorative
- The shapes of her hats spiral upwards
- After travelling the world, she now makes hats in a small town in Germany
Katharina Cruz is a colourful, out-of-the-box personality who appreciates the unusual and enjoys making unusual hats. From a small village in Bavaria where she grew up, to Hong Kong, Canada, Montreal, and Paris where she reached her dream of having a hat boutique. She also lived in Namibia, Switzerland and Paraguay, before settling in the small town of Hamelin, where she handcrafts vibrant and life-affirming hats. Katharina's hats seem to dance: like sculptures, they feature an upward spiralling line that draws the eye and brings out the wearer's personality. Katharina says that even when you live in a small town, you can have a broad view of the world, and that wearing a hat can change everything!
INTERVIEW
Hats came into my life when I was a child. My aunt brought me some hats from London and I immediately fell in love with them. I have worn a hat ever since, even though it was very unusual at the time and the whole village laughed at me. But I did not care. I think it shaped me as a person. I really like to do unusual things and wear unusual things.
I went to fashion school in Montreal and then to a milliner with 30 years of experience. He was a unique person who made hats for Montreal high society, producing hats with original techniques that he shared with me. I took his experience and realised my dream of having an atelier and boutique in Paris, where my style finally took shape.
I do not decorate my hats at all. Their shapes reveal themselves in space. Each hat has a line that spirals upwards. The spiral symbolises movement. My main idea is that life is movement, which I try to express in my hats.
Practicality and elegance are both important to me. I shape a hat like a sculpture, and it has to look beautiful on the head and be easy to pack in a suitcase. For me, a good piece of work is as beautiful and of the same quality on the outside as on the inside. I have to think about how to sew it so that nothing shows and how to make the inside of the hat a joy, too.
