Ellen Christine Couture

Ellen Christine is a master at the art of millinery. I am a hat lover and enjoy picking out my own sunhats, but feel a bit intimidated choosing a cocktail hat for a black tie event or a faacinator hat for a polo match. I went to Ellen Christine’s atelier for some sound advice and an expert touch. I have since worn both hats look forward to wearing them again and again for years to come. I am confident that purchasing a stylish, timeless hat from a milliner is money well spent.

I’m not exactly sure what I did to be treated as I was today at this place. This place was first on my list for bridal veil shopping, and admittedly I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. I did my best to describe what I was looking for (a simple french veil with a headpiece that I already had made with my dress), and she looked at my like I’d asked for roadkill mounted on lace. Actually, she said something that kind of implied that. A minute or so into my explanation, she said «Honestly, I don’t even want to see that. That sounds like a disaster.» I’m willing to concede that I wasn’t doing the best job explaining what I wanted, but a good designer should be able to work with a customer to figure out what you’re going for. Sorry you can’t be bothered to ask me reasonable questions and point me in the right direction, your unflappable and pioneering artistic vision and all. I went to Bridal Veil Falls on E. 9^th Street where I was told that my ideal veil was both totally possible and perfectly common.
Two stars since I guess this place has nice hats for people who wear hats.

Who buys hats? I personally avoid them like the plague. Hats, to me, are what bathing suit shopping is for the body and what sunglasses shopping is for the face… Fear inducing, anxiety producing hell. But in the winter when your head is freezing, and your hair has been matted to your head by the hat that your grandmother knit you when you were 12, you say, maybe I should get a real hat.
Enter Ellen Christine. The eponymous store sells hats in the front and vintage clothing in the back. Thus when I hankered after a crushed velvet oversized newsboy hat from the pages of Bazaar (alright… yeah, my friends now call me Jamiroquai)… it was straight to Ellen Christine (albeit a year later) to track it down. She makes all of her hats by hand, and therefore can custom make anything to fit your overly large /​small or oddly shaped head. She’s brutally honest and minces no words. Her knowledge of vintage clothing is expansive: she has a great selection of vintage clothes as well as items she has designed or embellished. She also makes her own jewelry, pieces that have a distinctly Marni-​esque edge. When I bought my hat, I actually ended up spending over an hour getting educated on buying vintage, making jewelry and appreciating hats. Hey, it’s not often you walk out of a retail store with more knowledge instead of just less money.