Balenciaga, Dior, Givenchy, Lanvin. These names remain synonymous with luxury fashion. Orcel, Paulette, Saint-Cyr. Less familiar to audiences today, these milliners nevertheless played an important role in the history of Parisian couture.

The Milliners Guild was delighted to discover a trove of colorful millinery sketches from these celebrated fashion houses, which partnered with Bergdorf Goodman to bring haute couture to American customers.

Small works on paper, the sketches capture each design’s proportions, silhouette and embellishments. Some include alternate views or handwritten notes specifying colors, materials and trims, such as “all black felt and ostrich” (Canessa 827) or “net over maline with cut velvet and silk flowers” (Lanvin 999).

Each sketch is annotated in ink with a designer’s name and a three-digit style number. Although undated, the collection can be attributed to the 1950s and early 1960s based on the hat styles depicted.

For this exhibition, each Milliners Guild member selected a sketch as the starting point for a new design. Reinterpreted by modern milliners, the hats demonstrate how a single idea can lead to seemingly limitless possibilities. They also reveal the distinction between copying or reproducing a fashion object and using it as a point of departure.

Drawing Inspiration brings together archival sketches drawn by unidentified artists, who quickly captured the essential elements of a famous designer’s vision, and an array of original hats by the Milliners Guild. Together, these works celebrate the creative dialogue between past and present, showing how a contemporary milliner transforms a historical reference into a new design.