Starr

As soon as I got my black velvet ribbon I knew I wanted to juxtapose it with a cluster of clear rhinestones, so I pulled every size of rhinestone I could find to get the effect I was looking for. There are sew-on rhinestones in fancy shapes, some rosette sew-ons that I actually bought in 1999 (!) for a totally different project which have languished in my crafts box since then, and teeny-tiny rhinestones to fill in some of the spaces and balance things out. I was trying to come up with a name for this hat when I was done, and all I could think of was the Sargent painting of Madame X, but "Madame X" was kind of a weird name for a hat, and the model's first name was Pierre, which was also a weird name, so I went with Starr, like stars in the sky. I think it works...

Starr:

Like sparkling stars in a velvety night sky, the Starr will make you catch your breath at its sheer beauty and elegance. Inky black velvet ribbon and gleaming black satin provide a textural contrast to the black felt hat, which is deepened by the airy black ostrich plume that floats like an evening cloud above it all. A huge faux diamond wrapped in silver filigree is surrounded by smaller rhinestones in all shapes and sizes, clustering like stars in a distant galaxy, while more tiny rhinestones accent the border between velvet and satin and the spine of the ostrich plume, peeping through the blackness like the first stars at twilight. If you're drawn to darkness but refuse to give up the fiery sparkle of diamonds, the Starr is the best of both worlds.