Milliner Herma de Jong was inspired to design, innovate and think spatially at a young age. She grew up in a technical and artistic environment: father was inventor, grandmother concertpianist. Her parental home was filled with brothers, a sister, numerous books, techniques, inventions and chess games.
She got further inspiration in Paris and Amsterdam and learned a lot about fashion and style, partially based on movies with divas and actors, music, books, mythology, nature and science.
A technical fashion education stimulated her natural feel for spatial design and made her want to create unique fashion around a product that seemed to be extinct at the end of the last century: the hat. She added valuable knowledge about Dutch milliners to her education and developed her own technique and style.
Milliner Herma de Jong is one of the most well-known Dutch Hat Designers and she makes hats for a broad range of women, amongst them famous Dutch entertainers and politicians.
“It’s my passion to discover new styles and contribute to the Dutch couture. But beyond that, it stays wonderful and challenging to make affordable hats for the ‘ready-to-wear’-market. Because: why would you only wear hats at exclusive moments? Luckily more and more Dutch women want to give themselves something extra in their personal appearance. Nowadays it’s a good thing to lift yourself above the rest. Women are supposed to shine and hats do make the difference.”
Next to her designs Herma is a widely asked speaker at congresses and she organises one-day workshops hat making for groups and individuals. She also offers internships and supervises young talents.
Herma designs and produces her hats in her own, atmospheric studio in Baarn. Here a part of her collections is on display and ready to try on.