About fifilabelle

I'm Fiona - a London-based hat designer and founder of fifilabelle.

I've always liked making things and wearing things on my head. I trimmed my first hat with a silk Liberty tie bought from a jumble sale at the age of twelve. Wearing my customised boater to school (a sprawling comprehensive, not a lacrosse field in site) was a little odd at the time but I just felt it topped off my school uniform a treat plus it gave me the feeling of being somewhere more exotic and glamorous than a biology class.

I grew up as a millitary child - Dad wore a hat to work every day and we were often getting dressed up in hats and gloves for parades and official ceremonies. We would stand on parade squares for hours on end waiting for the Royal family member to arrive so we could all get a good view of the hat they'd chosen for the occasion.

After studying Fine Art in London, I worked as an illustrator, a specialist decorator, a commissioned painter, an advertising executive and a marketing consultant before I finally took the plunge to formally learn the art of making hats at Central St Martins.

I have lived and worked in London, Berlin, San Francisco, Miami, Muscat and Dubai.

But I'm finally home in London, arguably the best place in the world to make hats.

Me at work.