Designs Hats

Wanganui Chronicle, 19 January 1948, Page 7

Designs Hats

YOUNG MELBOURNE BOY. Australia’s youngest designer of exclusive model hats is 18-year-old William Beale, of Melbourne. Artistic design, skilful needlework, and colour harmony go into all his hats, and he enjoys every minute of designing, making, and selling. Four years ago he was a pupil at Essenden High School, Melbourne. He surprised his teachers with his remarkable skill in handicrafts. Even in those days he could make not only good hats, but “really different' 1 models. He first got the idea when, as a child, he accompanied his mother to buy a hat. Now he runs a oneman city salon which is combined workioom and showroom, and he has ambitions about a bigger salon for his rapidly-expanding business. He does not hesitate to tell a customer when a hat does not suit her. He insists on something with width and height for fat faces, and something with side-drapings for a thin face. He uses French ribbons, roses, orchids, misty veiling, lace and sequins in trimming his hats; and each model bears a label, “Created by William Beale.”