Forming the Hat

Skull kid’s hat is a gravity-defying structure, seemingly made of cloth but holding its shape as the strips making up the brim extend widely.

To hold this structure, I first constructed a wire frame base form. Steel wire was cut and wrapped to form the base dome of the hat, and then extended to the length of the long strips making up the brim. Following that, strips of orange burlap cloth were cut in strips long enough to cover both the base of the hat and the extension, up to the center where the palm-tree bit flares out.

The burlap strips were laid above and below each pair of wires and glued together with fabric glue. They were then glued to each other at the dome, until they reached the center.

The palm-tree shape jutting up from the center was actually made completely separately. Wire strips of various lengths to reinforce strips of burlap, just as the main body of the hat. These were bundled together and wrapped with raffia, leaving a significant amount protruding from the bottom. This was inserted through the top of the dome and secured to the inner wire frame. The ends of the cloth at the center of the hat were bundled together at the raffia wrapping, and then further wrapped with more raffia to create a seamless appearance.

Lastly, wooden rings were purchased and wrapped together with raffia. This was glued to the hat with hot glue on the back of the raffia wrappings.

To secure it to my head, a chinstrap made of the same wide elastic cloth as the mask straps was sewn in, looping around the inner edge of the wireframe body for reinforcement.