Rye News has already mentioned ‘Millinery and Art’, the new venture, shop / gallery started by Caroline Morris in 2019 which is very close to St Leonard’s station at 59 Kings Road – and is so easy to reach.
It has a bright spacious interior which shows off Caroline’s exquisite hat creations in varied sizes, each unique in their detail and edgy designs. They have been worn at Ascot and at other high society events including weddings and she is a well established designer in this country and abroad, also embroidering silk garments.
Caroline said that she was lucky as she was discovered by a New York store in 1996 and has not looked back since. She is also an educator and has taught at the Chelsea Art School and Victoria and Albert Museum. Caroline is a niche hat maker and encouraged her students by holding tea parties where they together organised fashion shows.
Now in her beautiful space where she creates her hats, she also wanted to share it and has collaborated with local artists, curating a gallery in part of the room to show their fine art embroidery.
Exhibiting intricate work
Presently Karen Fullalove and Agnes Chevalier are exhibiting their intricate work. Karen was a conservationist in Rye Harbour, many of her stitched images are inspired from that time along with local scenes from Hastings. Her beautifully crafted pieces display the natural world in great detail. Her works are canvas embroidered with upwards of 3,000 stitches.
Agnes’ work in contrast is machine embroidered with colour intensity. She draws her pictures on cotton or silk first, using paint or dyes, and then machine sews them afterwards and Agnes stitches multiple layers of rich, vibrant coloured threads to achieve a three dimensional effect.
It is clear that both artists’ work and Caroline Morris’ millinery work show great knowledge about art and their pieces are exceptional and probable heirlooms. Hopefully Caroline will open again after December 2. But in the meantime here is her website and email addresses for Agnes Chevalier: anyes@hotmail.co.uk and Karen Fullalove: 10karmalove@gmail.com
Image Credits: Heidi Foster .