COMMUNITY CENTRE

I am more of a creator than a hatmaker. I like to play with the circle in my designs,” says Hungarian milliner extraordinaire Valéria Fazekas. “The circle is mysterious. In the simplicity of its fluid lines you can create beautiful shapes.” Fazekas started her professional life making leather clothing for factory workers during the Communist era. From her tiny atelier and shop on Váci Street (valeriafazekas.com), she uses the finest horse hair to create exquisite sculptural, translucent hats. When I suggest they’d be sensations at the Melbourne Cup’s Fashions on the Field, she tells me that she doesn’t sell mail order “because each hat must be perfectly aligned with a person’s head and body”.

This is my first Budapest discovery based on the recommendations of Hungarian Australian art curator Jade Niklai and I’m raring for more. I ask Jade