Anna Lee: a woman of many hats

Anna Lee is a Fargo native and entrepreneur who got her creative start in Fargo. She was involved with the costume shop at Trollwood Performing Arts while she was in high school and college, attended the MSUM fine art department and took some fashion courses at NDSU. She has always loved art and had a passion for fashion, and she found that the best way to combine her two loves was through the fine craft of millinery -- making hats.

Anna Lee will be showcasing her winter collection along with a few other pieces this coming Thursday, Jan. 14, at Zandbroz Variety in Downtown Fargo. The collection consists primarily of blocked wool hats (think fedoras, wide brim floppies and boater hats). A blocked hat is a wool hat shaped around a hat form. When wool becomes moist it tends to be quite malleable and can take on sculptural qualities.

Faux fur options (which are her opening price points) will also be available, along with a few cut-and-sew hats. She enjoys collaborating with her customers on custom hats to fit their personalities.

“Hats in general have been having such a moment as far as wide brim floppies, wide brim fedoras and just fedoras in general for both men and women,” said Anna Lee. “Silhouettes for felt blocked hats, more color, peaking crown height, more boater hats, more personal style. People creating their own style around a look is becoming more and more important.” 

“Hats can be really daunting -- you put one on your head and it draws attention. You can’t be invisible with a hat, unless it’s something like a stocking cap or a baseball hat,” said Lee. “But when you take more of a couture-quality hat, vintage hat or anything remotely bold, it draws attention to you, and it can amplify part of your personality too.”

Lee added that not everyone is ready to invest in a $200 handmade hat. “There’s nothing wrong with going to Target to get into a $15 hat. Step into your statement.”

Lee spent time at the factories in China and witnessed the women handweaving the straw for the straw hats that appear on the shelves at Target, and she sees an interconnected web of hat makers. “I have a lot of respect for the hats that end up at Target, just as much as I do for Philip Treacy and all of these people that are handcrafting -- it’s about hats!” Lee said.

“The first step is getting comfortable in making that statement and bringing out that part of yourself,” Lee said. In a style pinch, she recommends checking Pinterest or Instagram for fashion inspiration. She says it’s a great way to connect and share aesthetic concepts in fashion and design in general.

Lee also notes that the rise of fascinators and decorative headwear thrills her to no end. She sees more and more of a rise in business in hats for the Kentucky Derby each year. She is currently working on a collection of Kentucky Derby hats. These pieces tend to be a bit more theatrical in their design and allow her to apply and flex her traditional millinery skills.

In mentioning the rise in sales as a result of the Kentucky Derby, Lee makes mention of how cultural trends impact the sales of her hats. Not only does Lee have a fine art and fashion background, she has quite the business sense

In fact, she has put nearly a decade into product development at the Target Corporation, and now works independently via her company Workerby. Not only does it involve her art, but her knowledge of the fashion industry such as product development, creative business workshops, career consulting and coaching.

The work she does with the product development facet of her studio involves trend forecasts, which is the “foundation of culturally what’s happening, and how that impacts the greater industry,” said Lee.

Lee has definitely had a taste of the greater industry and has had quite the impact upon the independent fashion world in the Twin Cities. She produced Voltage: Fashion Amplified, a sold-out rock and roll fashion show at First Avenue in Minneapolis, which brought musical artists and designers together. The designers not only dressed their models but the bands as well. This eventually led to the nonprofit organization MNfashion, which then led to Minneapolis-St. Paul Fashion Week.

“The common thread through all of this, which I’ve found true, with all of the ups and downs of working too much and having nothing left,” Lee said, “is that the things that are the most important to me is the simple act of creating and also the simple yet complex act of connecting with other people.”

Ironically the first show that Lee had participated in was produced by the High Plains Reader in the fall of 1996. A year and a half later she produced her first show, which was billed as a wearable art show and for which she created 18 dresses, a few head pieces and made the cover of the HPR.

She credits the success of the shows that she produced in the Twin Cities to the fine art of delegation -- choosing the right people for the right jobs. She describes the first few shows as chaotic. “A big mantra right now is that it’s alright to fail. I mean everything kind of sucked in the beginning, but you keep doing it and you find that you’re actually doing pretty well as long as you keep trying to evolve.”

IF YOU GO

Hats for 2016: A trunk show

Thurs. Jan. 14, 4-8 p.m.

Zandbroz Variety, 420 N Broadway

http://workerby.com/