Created in 1936 by Auguste Michel, this maker of pretty hats took off thanks to its collaborations with great fashion houses like Dior and Christian Lacroix. In 1968, it fell into the hands of Pierre Debard and his wife Claudine. They both adorned the brand’s workshops with Weissmann machines that were able to sew the straw and thus produce large hats with invisible stitches. Around since Ancient times, the straw hat was originally meant for peasants in the Middle Ages. It then also became the prerogative of the privileged, from the Florentine Renaissance where a Tuscan version dressed the crowned heads, to 19th century France, where women wore a garden hat embellished with a few ribbons and flowers in order to give themselves a false air of lightness. By bringing large straw sun hats back into taste, Maison Michel seduced great couturiers like Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent, who would make it one of his cornerstone pieces. Since 1980, the brand has been hatting collections from the greatest couture houses like Givenchy, Nina Ricci, and Lanvin; Chanel acquired Maison Michel in 1996 for their Métiers d’Art group.
In 2006, Chanel’s accessories and jewelry director Laetitia Crahay set down her suitcases and her poetry in Maison Michel’s workshops, still located at 65 rue Sainte Anne in Paris. The creative director, full of life, reaffirms the classics all while preserving Maison Michel’s artisanal savoir-faire. Through the seasons, the brand’s straw hat has been released in line with the trends and dressed up the most renowned of heads. From Rachel Bilson to Mélanie Laurent and the lovely Arizona Muse who’s gotten decked out in a straw and lace cap at the Royal Ascot close to Windsor, numerous are those who’ve gotten their hands on the Maison Michel hat, as are those who’ve posed for the brand’s campaigns like Clémence Poésy.The key piece is without a doubt theVirginie straw fedora. Depicted in a poetic campaign signed off on by Karl Lagerfeld in 2013, it brings in a collection where straw sees itself turned upside down, sometimes veiled with a romantic lace, sometimes covered with graffiti for a more unusual look. Emblem of the brand, the straw hat is a blank canvas for Maison Michel, infinitely interpretable.
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