About (in a nutshell)
Vintage Feathers is the place to see and buy early 20th century feather millinery work. Our inventory includes over eight thousand antique feather hat trims in over 250 unique styles, antique glass eyes from France, and handmade boutonnieres created from vintage feather trims/parts and other feathers. Our adventures with these trims began over 20 years ago when we ended up in Ghent, NY, with a barn full of vintage millinery trims. Since then, Vintage Feathers has been privileged to be the go-to source for some of the world's finest milliners and costumers. If we are able to help them with their needs, we can probably help you with yours. Thanks for stopping by and we look forward to serving you.
where it began
In 1995, through a peculiar series of events, a vast collection of early 1900s millinery trims came into our possession when we were fortunate enough to obtain the warehouse inventory of Max Herman and Co. and Successors from 37th Street in NYC.
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Tucked away in a barn in upstate NY for 50 years were many thousands of feather and flower hat trims, thousands of antique glass eyes from France for decoys, dolls, bears, and millinery, and other millinery supply items. Most of the feather and flower trims were made between WWI and WWII, and many still had their “Paris” and “Germany” labels of origin.
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Our Mission
Our mission with the inventory was to get these fabulous finds into the hands of those who will use them. Since 1996, the trims sourced from the barn were purchased by a diverse group of top-notch milliners, costumers, craftspeople, fly tiers, artisans, designers, and retailers from all over the world.
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Our clients have included The Tinsel Trading Company in NYC, milliners for the Metropolitan Opera House and various Broadway shows; the costumer for the TV show "Boardwalk Empire"; the costumers for the movies "The Hunger Games", "Crimson Peak", and "Wonder Woman" ; the world renowned milliner Philip Treacy, the fashion house of Maison Martin Margiela, and countless scores of other fine milliners, craftspeople, and artisans. |
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Commissions
In the fall of 2013, we were honored to be contacted and commissioned by Escuela Politécnica of Guatemala to produce the pompoms / hackles for the head pieces of the cadets. The project called for several hundred large hackles which did not utilize any of our vintage feathers; everything was sourced new. The handling of tens of thousands of vintage feathers trims plus our own art/design backgrounds made this a viable project for us.
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Our responsibilities included figuring out how the original hackles were made and duplicating them. We had to find a metal shop that could economically reproduce the brass metal fittings that covered the base of the pompoms and allowed them to be secured onto the head pieces. We also needed to work with a feather supply company to custom dye the new hackle feathers to match the color of the existing feather pompoms. After the components arrived, we assembled the pompoms in our studio.
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As of 2017
Now, twenty+ years after we started shipping these vintage trims out into the world, we have uploaded the remaining inventory of the trims you see within our "index" pages to our eBay store where they are available for individual purchase.
The index part of this site will remain available for teachers, students, and lovers of the millinery, feather, and costume trades to use and enjoy after the trims are sold.
Warm regards,
Elizabeth and Michael Walters
Vintage Feathers
The index part of this site will remain available for teachers, students, and lovers of the millinery, feather, and costume trades to use and enjoy after the trims are sold.
Warm regards,
Elizabeth and Michael Walters
Vintage Feathers
