About (in a nutshell)
Vintage Feathers was once the place to buy early 20th century feather millinery work. Our inventory included 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 in 1995 when we ended up in Ghent, NY, with a barn full of vintage millinery trims. Until 2020, Vintage Feathers was privileged to be the go-to vintage feather source for some of the world's finest milliners and costumers.
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
Twenty+ years after we started shipping these vintage trims out into the world, we uploaded the remaining inventory of the trims you see within our "index" pages. The index part of this site will remain available as an online museum reference for teachers, students, and lovers of the millinery, feather, and costume trades to use and enjoy after the trims are sold.
As of 2020
In 2020, we relocated to another part of the country and sold the remaining 5000 trims to Marcia at Tinsel Trading where they can be purchased while supplies last.
Thank you for reading about our feather journey.
Warm regards,
Elizabeth and Michael Walters
Vintage Feathers
Thank you for reading about our feather journey.
Warm regards,
Elizabeth and Michael Walters
Vintage Feathers
