When people come and visit me and have a hat made, it’s a little bit like visiting a psychiatrist, but they don’t actually realize that. – Philip Treacy
Hats are attached to special moments in people’s lives – weddings, or the races. In difficult times, people still get married; they still want to look their best. – Philip Treacy
I used to make clothes for my sister’s dolls. I couldn’t care less for the dolls, but I could make the clothes really easily. – Philip Treacy
There’s a technicality to designing and wearing hats. A hat is balancing the proportions of your face; it’s like architecture or mathematics. – Philip Treacy
Not long ago, a hat was a conformist accessory. Then the 1960s came along, and young people didn’t want to wear hats. – Philip Treacy
I love the romance of what I do, although because of Isabella, Lady Gaga and Grace Jones, people think I have crazy customers. Sometimes I get more enthusiasm from the housewife who wants a hat and believes in it. – Philip Treacy
I always design the hat with the wearer in mind; otherwise, it’s an inanimate object. – Philip Treacy
Fashion is an illusion. It’s a multibillion-pound industry that has to appear frivolous. Designers work and work and work, all night sometimes. – Philip Treacy
When you meet someone, you meet their face. It’s the most potent part of the body to embellish. – Philip Treacy
In Rome, I particularly love the history, churches, sculptures and architecture and the fact that you can walk along a tiny cobbled street and turn the corner to find the Trevi Fountain. London is evocative of other eras and full of history. – Philip Treacy
I was just, as a child, very different from the others, and didn’t really care what they thought because you know, a child doesn’t really have inhibitions; you sort of gain your inhibitions later. – Philip Treacy
The only person I never made a hat for was my mother because my mother didn’t really – she preferred to make her own hats. I mean, she was intrigued by everything, but she didn’t want one of my hats. She made her own. – Philip Treacy
Hats are for life’s ultimate moments. They’re worn at races, at weddings. Occasions many of us, who aren’t royals and celebrities, only attend once or twice in a lifetime. – Philip Treacy
I remember in the early nineties people saying the hat was just for old women, but that’s ridiculous. – Philip Treacy
I believe in a democratic approach to fashion: if you feel good, then great. You may not look good, but it’s not the problem. – Philip Treacy
People, when they buy a hat, they can’t explain why they want to buy it or why they want it, but they do. It’s like chocolate. – Philip Treacy
A person carries off the hat. Hats are about emotion. It is all about how it makes you feel. – Philip Treacy
At home, I had seven brothers, one sister. I sewed clothes for my sister’s dolls although she was grown and gone away. I was a weirdo but didn’t think I was a weirdo. – Philip Treacy
The success of a hat definitely lies with balancing the personality of the wearer with the type of occasion. Don’t listen to those rules about face shape. – Philip Treacy
Women come into our shop for that ultimate moment in their life. They’re buying a dream. They’re buying a moment for themselves. That’s what I sell – moments. – Philip Treacy
