Meet the Maker – Fiona Schofield
As a teenager growing up in Forbes, Fiona Schofield always had her sights set on the fashion industry.
But one year into her fashion design and illustration studies at the Whitehouse Institute in Sydney, she had an uncomfortable realisation.
“I got there and realised that I really didn't like doing the clothes. So, I had a bit of a crisis moment at the end of the first year and thought I don’t think I've really chosen the right thing,” said Fiona, who was eventually talked out of quitting by her parents.
“My parents had listened to me bang on about this being the only thing I wanted to do for so long that they said look go back, finish, see it out to the end and then if you still don't love it at least you've finished it — and so I went back.”
It was then that the opportunity arose to take a millinery elective and Fiona quickly fell in love with the craft.
“It was a lightbulb moment for me, because the thing I didn't love when I got to college was that you become a bit removed from the making… You would create the designs and then it would just go off and come back as a finished thing, whereas I'm very much a maker, I like to make things and so millinery was a great marriage of that, because it was kind of like sculpture it was kind of art and fashion, there is a lot of hand work in it rather than working on machines and so it just ticked all the boxes for me.”
Completing her fashion studies, Fiona went to work for her lecturer, the well-known Sydney milliner Neil Grigg.
“I finished college on the Friday and started working full-time with him on the Monday and I worked with him for 6 years, it was great,” said Fiona.
“We used to have the Ansett Airline contract so we would make all the hats for the air hostesses… we used to service customers like David Jones and lots of high-end boutiques all around Australia with a really beautiful fashion range. I was really lucky, the training that I had was so broad.”
If there’s one misconception Fiona would like to change, it’s the notion some people have that, ‘hats just don’t suit them’.
“I always see it as a challenge when someone says, Hat's don't suit me; it is rare to find one that doesn't suit them,” she said.
“It is about balancing out what is happening in your face and in your body proportions. Are you really tall? Are you really short? All of those things play a part in whether it looks great or not. The people you see that look really fabulous in a hat, you don't go, look at the lady in the hat or look at that guy in the hat. You go, Gosh, don't they look fantastic! And isn't their hat beautiful. It's that the overall look is seamlessly together, because they have all their balance and proportion right.
“I tweak each hat as I make it so that it suits the customer I'm making it for, it becomes very individualised and that way you get a hat that you look and feel fabulous in!”