Swarovski Award for Accessory Design Nominee
A cream-colored bucket hat with menacing cutout eyes. A stiff boat cap, braided and painted with black latex body paint. A delicate tuft of ebony coq feathers, balanced just so on the left side of the head. Over the last few seasons, South African-born, Washington Heights-dwelling milliner Albertus Q. Swanepoel has virtually cornered the (very theatrical) market on les chapeaux — so much so that to see a headpiece go cruising down the runway in New York is to wonder not if Swanepoel crafted it, but how and when. Swanepoel’s often delicate, occasionally fierce, altogether original creations are a reminder that one’s most chic accessory need not be of the “It” moment ilk.
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