Sculptural Headwear for Earthlings by Jasmin Zorlu: A Suit from Astor and Black Gets a Custom Made Gatsby Cap!

It all started with a simple phone call from a musician who had a vision. He asked me if I could make a 'Gatsby style' cap to go with his custom made tuxedo from Astor and Black, which he could take on a worldwide cruise where he was to perform. Astor and Black are famous for making bespoke suits for sports stars, billionaires, and entrepreneurs.

Christopher Kilday in his Astor and Black suit

"Sure, I can do that", I said. "Why don't we make an appointment for you to come over with your suit?" Christopher Kilday came over a few days later and we discussed the 'Gatsby Cap' in question. At first, I thought he wanted a 'Driver's Cap', but after we looked at the hat online together, I knew exactly what he wanted. Baron hats had made the hat for the Gatsby movie. Instead of just working off of a photo, I decided to give myself homework by watching the actual movie based on the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. The hat appeared towards the end of the movie only for a few seconds, but it was enough. I was able to see the movement of the hat and how it lay on the head. I noticed it had a rounded-off squarish visor, so I drafted the visor pattern that way.

A scene from The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford wearing the famous Gatsby Cap

The Great Gatsby dvd I rented as homework

Luckily, I already had the pattern in my pattern library, so all I had to do was take all his measurements and then make the mock-up out of muslin. I actually used hemp twill, because of the nice body it has.


My original pattern proved to make the hat too bulbous, so I redrafted the pattern and sewed it up again

Whoh! I made the visor too long. I had wanted to protect Christopher from the sun, but the proportions were all off.

I texted Christopher the proto on my head, courtesy of Blackberry (bad camera!)

So we tried it on him and I trimmed the visor (flexible plastic was inside). I then sealed the outside edge ghetto-style with scotch tape and gave it to him, telling him to wear it around the garden to try it out, to see how he liked the proportion. "How did you know I garden?", he replied. "I didn't, I just took a wild guess!", I replied. I didn't want to suggest that he go out with this marked-up proto while shopping for groceries or to the beach. What if someone thought it was a real hat, when it was just a proto? I would be so embarrassed!

We had to have the fabric (along with the lining) sent to us from Astor and Black. It took one whole week to receive it, so I didn't have much time to make it before he left for the cruise (48 hours?!).

The handsome bard in his Zorlu proto cap

Many people don't realize all the work which goes into fabric, or 'cut and sewn' hats. And guess what? That's why they're made in China! They are super labor intensive. In fact, as I am an avid record keeper (I used to keep track as a young child of how much I got in chore money for washing my mother's hair), I logged 13 hours total in making the final (and that doesn't include the time I put into making the proto, kids!). First you need to cut out the outside fabric, the interfacing and the lining. I had to be super careful when cutting it out, since I cut it out on the bias and wanted the white on white pinstripes to match up. Then I had to make sure that when I pinned the pie-shaped pattern pieces together, the stripes were all lining up. Then I cut out plastic for the visor, carefully slipping it inside the fabric, and hand-stitch it into the hat so that I wouldn't accidentally stitch through the plastic on my sewing machine. Oh wait, I didn't tell you that I hand-stitched grosgrain ribbon onto the outside edge of the visor to make it match the suit better. Then I covered a button and placed the grosgrain ribbon in the headsize to serve as a sweatband. All fine caps use real grosgrain, is my belief! Finally the label. It turned out beautifully and Christopher loved it.