Rachel Trevor-Morgan

The hat designer Rachel Trevor-Morgan was born in Stourbridge, West Midlands. Her father was a vicar and, as a child, she loved seeing her mother wear hats to church.[1] She was a pupil at The Alice Ottley School in Worcester and, aged 19, moved to London intent on learning how to be a milliner.[2]

She wrote to British milliner Graham Smith – hatmaker to Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins and Princess Diana among others – asking if she could see how he worked. He interviewed Trevor-Morgan and offered her an apprenticeship.[1] She learned the trade for three years, as one of a workroom of 14 women in his studio near Oxford Street, then working for another royal hat designer Philip Somerville between 1988 and 1990. Trevor-Morgan has said of her training with two of London's most celebrated milliners that Graham Smith taught her how to get the hat right and Philip Somerville taught her about "people relations".[1] She has also described Smith as remaining her "mentor" when she needs advice.[1]

Trevor-Morgan set up in business in 1990, initially selling her designs in the market at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church.[1] Soon she was supplying Fortnum & Mason; Harrods and Selfridges followed and, in 1992, her business moved to a 17th-century studio in the prestige location of St James's.[1] By 1998, her reputation had grown to the extent that a feature in The Times included her in a list of go-to milliners in London, alongside much more established names such as Frederick Fox and Stephen Jones.[3]

Trevor-Morgan still supplies London stores such as Fortnum & Mason as well as creating hats for private clients. All designs are bespoke, with fabric and straw dyed in the St James's studio. Trevor-Morgan has said she prepares her dyes in a saucepan, cooking them up to achieve exactly the right shade.[1]

In 2014, she was commissioned to add miniature hats to Lego figures in front of a replica of Buckingham Palace at Legoland in Windsor in the run up to Royal Ascot.[9]

• Official website