Wooden shapes and esparto shape. Two schools of life, two schools of thought. Of course, there are also aluminum blocks for industrially produced hats, but in the artisanal sector the blocks are divided into wood and esparto. The first, the wooden ones, are made by carpenters for hatters; the latter are instead the realm of milliners who use loosely woven sheets of straw (precisely esparto), covered with primed gauze which, when moistened, is molded to obtain the desired shape. Making a shape in esparto is a demanding job even for an expert milliner and requires two whole days of work. We start with a drawing. The esparto shape is moistened and, leaning on a head - the so-called poupée - with the help of underwires, scissors and cast iron irons the desired shape is created. But in Gallia e Peter's atelier at a certain point the wooden shape makes its debut. This happens, for example, with the famous hat made on the Dior Parisian catwalks in October 1985, which conquered the press and, within a very short time, became an indisputable trend. That same wooden shape will be the basis of another precious and much loved hat: the one created for Armani's 2005/2006 autumn/winter collection. A black and white exultation as in the designer's best tradition. It doesn’t end here, though. Wood even becomes a material of use, as in the famous hat-sculpture with a futuristic soul, Elastico. To achieve it, in 1986, Laura Marelli throw her heart over the obstacle and is inspired by Joseph Stella's painting The Brooklyn Bridge (1939). She chooses wooden sticks extended towards each other, to trace an elegant skyline. She goes beyond the boundaries of shapes and reinvents a new idea of a hat that projects itself, obstinate, stubborn, extrovert, towards a new concept of future. At this point, there is no longer any material or form. Imagination, in the fabulous Eighties, reaches out towards completely new and unexplored horizons (and skylines). And the ancient "form" finally becomes, in everyone's eyes, true art.
