Wedding coronet

Last summer, I accepted a freelance contract to create a wire frame headpiece, a theatrical wedding coronet that would incorporate gold leaf motifs. In this post, I will walk you through some details of the construction.

 I do not have photos of my client wearing it. Even so I did get a pic of it modeled by one of my hat mannequins. 

The coronet was patterned after one I made as a teaching sample for my millinery class, which meant I had a mock-up to fit on the client in order to discuss scale and size, and how she envisioned wearing it. She shared some images of coronets she liked and we settled on a time to meet and determine further details like scale and materials. 

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This image illustrates the supplies we settled on: metallic Hercules braid (the ribbon at the top), two types of gold leaf charms, and a spool of gold leaf ribbon.

The Hercules braid I had already as part of my studio stock—I keep it around for projects just like this—and the client purchased the rest of it with the understanding that I would use as much as I needed to complete the project.

This image is a sample I made to discuss the structure with my client, and the density and placement of the different leaf styles.

I had my mock-up tiara for her to try on so we could discuss the scale and height of the finished piece with respect to her physicalIty. I have a full-length mirror in my studio and she tried it on looking in the mirror to make sure the scale would be what she wanted.

I also began sketching out ideas for what I thought the wire map should be. This image is a rough sketch and not at all to scale or balanced.

A wire map is something created to plan out the foundation for these kinds of projects and I have made a video about wire maps which you can watch here. The silver tiara frame at the beginning of this video is one of the ones that my client tried on to determine the scale of her own piece.

Here’s the finished tiara!