In the Museum of Hatmaking''''''''s Temporary Exhibition Room, we present temporary exhibitions that explore the history, art, and creativity of the world of hatmaking. These exhibitions allow visitors to experience different eras, styles, and artistic approaches, always with historical accuracy and attention to aesthetics.
The Hat Museum is celebrating two decades of existence, reaffirming its vocation as a living space of memory, creativity, and reinvention.
The exhibition ‘20 Years of History | 20 Years of Future’ revisits the creators - both national and international - who, over the past two decades, have helped shape the history of the Hat Museum.
In this exhibition, we bring together contemporary creations - irrefutable proof that between tradition and innovation, the future of hat-making remains vibrant, surprising... alive.
From felt to feathers, from experimental materials to unexpected shapes, between the conceptual and the classical, between the catwalk and the studio, the hat-making displayed here blends styles, dares combinations, and affirms identities — with refinement, with soul, with distinction.
These creators leave us a legacy that the Museum honours with pride. Their hats are now recorded and will be preserved for posterity… a living memory at the service of future generations.
Let us take our hats off to the past, with our eyes set on the future!
Because hat-making has a history. But above all, it has a future.
until 31st, December 2025
"Dior Hats" marks the debut of the iconic Maison Dior in Portugal, in the context of an exclusive exhibition, customised for the Temporary Exhibition Hall of the Hat Museum.
It presents the Hat as an essential element of haute couture and the Dior style, emphasising its role not only aesthetically, but also historically and socially. A perspective that restores the importance of fashion accessories in the construction of image and luxury in the post-World War II period.
The collaboration with the Christian Dior Museum - Granville strengthens the Hat Museum’s position at an international level and is an example of how dialogue between cultural institutions enriches the museological, artistic and educational panorama, connecting different collections, ideas, techniques and artistic visions in the field of millinery.
This exhibition reveals Christian Dior’s creative process and aesthetic. It pays special attention to how hats became part of the universe of the designer who argued that ‘the hat is the quintessence of femininity’.
until 20th April 2025
The Hat Museum welcomes 2024 with the exhibition Graciella Starling. Hat Couture from Brazil.
Nicknamed "Phillip Treacy in skirts" by Vogue Brazil, Graciella Starling presents bold creations in a perfect symbiosis of hat-making tradition and avant-garde fashion. Her hats are art and elegance, they dazzle those who wear them and inspire those who know them.
The Carnival of Brazil is one of its great stages.
Ivete Sangalo, Paula Fernandes, Marina Ruy Barbosa and Cinthia Chagas are just a few of the many Brazilian celebrities who have chosen Graciella Starling’s creations to brighten up their Carnival costumes.
But Brazilian fashion doesn’t end at Carnival and Graciella Starling wanted to conquer it outside of the festive season. The world of fashion in Brazil is vibrant and diverse, like the country itself, and therefore very challenging, especially in the art of hat making.
Her participation in São Paulo Fashion Week, the biggest fashion event in Brazil and the most important in Latin America, and her collaboration with TV Globo have contributed to the projection of her label. Her hats are worn on the most elegant and powerful heads in Brazil. Her creations have been featured on the cover of the most famous Brazilian fashion magazines.
With her eyes set on Europe, Graciella Starling chose one of her main entry points: Portugal and the Hat Museum in S. João da Madeira, which Latin America has echoed. This will be the starting point for the exhibition of exclusive, replicable collections of casual and social pieces.
And so, from the largest country in South America, the creations of the milliner responsible for introducing the concept of "Hat Couture" into the Brazilian fashion glossary come to our country.
This exhibition emphasises the multifaceted role that the Hat Museum has taken on by reconnecting the industrial and hat-making tradition and history of the two countries through the innovation and modernity of this art. It demonstrates the Museum’s commitment to giving visibility to new talents in the field of hat making worldwide. It also reinforces the position of S. João da Madeira as the Portuguese capital of hat making, contributing to the preservation of the region’s cultural identity.
opening on February 3, 2024, 4 p.m. closing on June 30, 2024
The Ilariusss hat brand is contemporary Italian millinery. It combines the tradition of felt and handmade production, with sophisticated and provocative elegance. Its pieces combine art, heritage, couture and modernity.
The brand was born in 2013 in Milan by Ilaria Soncini. The designer’s creative vision is shared, three years later, with Gemma Vernò.
The temporary exhibition that elevates felt - the raw material for hat production - to a luxury product.
In the large temporary exhibition hall of the Hat Museum, 52 pieces are showcased, divided into nine eclectic collections that express their individuality: Pop, Black Court, Erotika, Rinascita, Trilogy, El Matador and Cyborg.
Historically and aesthetically more traditional, in the collective imagination, felt is assumed as a classic. Ilariusss reinvents this object. Reinterprets it. Redefines it. It makes it contemporary. Attractive. And even erotic. A breath of fresh air in an object that evokes so many memories in this community.
The epithet of Portuguese hat-making capital is, once again, fitting for S. João da Madeira. The Hat Museum, together with industries such as Cortadoria Nacional do Pelo and FEPSA - Feltros Portugueses, S.A., reinforce the territory’s position in the national and international panorama of this art.
Deep roots that grow along a path. And which expand...
opening :: May 20, 2023 closing :: December 31, 2023
The temporary exhibition room of the Hat Museum presents, for the first time, the collection of a national hat creator, Luís Stoffel. It was at Teatro de Revista, as a costume designer and prop maker, that he discovered his true passion: millinery. Inevitably, the dramatic power of his creations ended up conquering one of the most recognized personalities of the Portuguese Revue Theater, Filipe La Féria. In this exhibition, 77 timeless pieces are presented, which are distinguished and distanced from those currently produced by the disposable world of fast fashion. There are hats, headdresses, fascinators and sculptural head accessories, some created specifically for this exhibition and others that will integrate the museum’s collection. They are also masks. Because the COVID-19 pandemic dictated the closure of concert halls. When “the curtain closed” and the world went into lockdown, Luís Stoffel found a new creation object, the mask, where he applied his craft skills, intrinsic to the art of millinery. In this way, for the first time in Portugal, in the large temporary exhibition space of the Hat Museum, a unique collection is presented, where the fashion accessory and the object of art are confused. An imprecise border that is essentially due to the materials used, the meticulous and refined finish of each of his creations, the use of haute couture techniques and exceptional creativity.
opening :: May 21, 2022 closing :: April 30, 2023
With the exhibition “Francesco Ballestrazzi. Not Just a Fairy Tale”, Portugal welcomes, for the first time, the work of one of the most original and talented milliners of today.
Francesco Ballestrazzi was born in Carpi, a municipality in the region of Emilia-Romagna, Italy, known for its cultural heritage and beautiful natural landscapes, elements that had great influence on the development of this creator’s personality and sensibility.
In Milan, where he lives and works, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera, after which he began his professional career, first as an illustrator of children’s books, then through a fleeting experience in the world of dance and finally entering the world of fashion. Collaborations with major designers and fashion labels such as Alexander McQueen or Moschino brought him renewed knowledge and experience, to which he added a greater creative freedom.
Looking to make a journey of discovery to his creative “Self”, in 2011, Francesco Ballestrazzi launched the label “Francesco Ballestrazzi Hats & Creations”, with which he started to give shape to what would become visual expressions of his dreams and inspirations.
Divided into 10 different collections and featuring 72 pieces, produced between 2013 and 2021, the exhibition “Not Just a Fairy Tale” invites us to embark on a dream and fantasy journey to Francesco Ballestrazzi’s alternative universes.
opening :: October 11, 2021 closing :: May 1, 2022
“Donna Hartley Millinery. A touch of elegance ”is the new temporary exhibition at the Hat Museum. The Donna Hartley Millinery brand emerged in May 2015, born out of the deep friendship between a hat designer and a plastic artist. To Donna Hartley’s expertise in the traditional design and manufacture of hats and headdresses joins Joanne Jones’ creative exuberance and artistic view.
Donna Hartley Millinery pieces perfectly combine a delicate balance between chic Parisience style, Spanish extravagance and British refinement with a unique style for any occasion.
opening :: October 11, 2020 closing :: September 19, 2021
Marianne Jongkind considers herself a perfectionist who does not rest until she can faithfully recreate the piece she mentally devised. This is because Marianne does not rest until her sketches are perfect. Your mind is the sketchbook and your eyes the catalog where you combine, with great mastery, a great color palette with the best materials. Her hands, the tools of rigor and perfection that so characterize her and bring to life the most beautiful and extravagant hats and headdresses. Owner of a very peculiar style, Marianne Jongkind stands out for the use of elegant lines and eccentric voluminous and almost geometric shapes that refer to one of her favorite sources of inspiration: architecture. "Marianne Jongkind. 55 Years of Hat Couture" is thus the starting point for the construction of a unique biographical exhibition that will be presented for the first time at the Hat Museum and in Portugal.
opening :: October 11, 2019 closing :: September 13, 2020
Inserted in the programming cycle of the Museum of Chapelaria for 2019, entitled “Create between worlds. From head to toe ”, this temporary exhibition brings Araceli Sancho to Portugal for the first time, a Valencian hat designer with a studio in the small town of Teruel.
Multidisciplinary by nature, Araceli Sancho works in different conceptual areas that include historical recreations, visual and scenic arts and, of course, fashion and design. International recognition as a hatmaker emerges from the combination of his passion for fashion and creative design, the driving force behind Araceli Sancho’s creativity, with the exemplary mastery of traditional hat-making techniques.
opening :: May 18, 2019 closing :: September 29, 2019
Estibalitz Diaz de Durana is a hat designer from Bilbao, Spain, who has always been fascinated by the sheen and touch of the fabrics.
His pieces, intense and full of strength, stand out for the richness and luxury of the materials and accessories used, for the strength and intensity of the themes portrayed and for a peculiar surrealist aesthetic. “Estibalitz Diaz de Durana. Between hats and dreams” presents the dream universe that makes up the work of this original designer and makes her stand out in the fashion world.
opening :: October 11, 2018 closing :: April 28, 2019
Harvy Santos is a young hat designer and headpieces that, presently, lives in London.
Born in the Phillipines, Harvy Santos is influenced by a diverse set of cultural and religious dinamics, such as the emotional Marian processions of Catholic devotion that end up dictating his own way of being and seeing the world.
But avant-garde high fashion, pop culture, punk rock and drag performers are also inspirational elements that Harvy fuses with the more traditional elements of his origins. His pieces combine exquisite beauty with a cheeky theatricality in such a way that, today, he is considered as one of the most promising hat designers of our days.
With this exhibition, Portugal welcomes this designer’s exceptionally creative work for the first time. Divided into 8 different collections, the exhibition showcases 81 hats produced between 2014 and 2017.
opening :: April 08, 2018 closing :: September 23, 2018
Maor Zabar is an Israeli hat designer whose pieces stand out for their originality and eccentricity and who take as their main source of inspiration their life story and personal experience as a fashion designer and costume designer for the theater. Each hat and head cover, made of felt, natural linen or delicate silks, is carefully worked, sewn and artistically painted by hand to give rise to what Maor Zabar calls “Perfect Creation”. Insects, flowers, food, toys or folk tales are just some of its collections and each of them takes on broad styles and facets ranging from realism to parody. And whoever wears them is sure that, with a hint of humor, they will feel glamorous.
opening :: October 15, 2017 closing :: March 31, 2018
”Pablo Y Mayaya” is the brand of the famous Spanish hatters duo composed by Pablo Merino and Mayaya Cebrián. Sharing a vision where tradition meets modernity, Pablo and Mayaya dedicate themselves to the creation and personalization of beautiful hats and headdresses, ensuring that each piece receives a little of its soul. Her hats have traveled the world and adorned many heads, including that of Queen Letizia of Spain, who is one of Pablo Y Mayaya’s regular clients. With this exhibition, the Museu da Chapelaria intends to make a retrospective of this fantastic hat brand and the career of its creators.
opening :: May 20, 2017 closing :: September 24, 2017
