Custom milliner Kim Lake handcrafts wearable art that's designed to last.
Kim Lake hopes that her custom-made in Telluride hats— and the lovely stories that go with them—will be passed down for generations. PHOTOS BY ABIE LIVESAY PHOTOGRAPHY
Lake customizes each hat with trimmings like ribbon and cording.
Kim Lake doesn't rely on an heirloom watch to keep her schedule or her grandmother’s quilt to stay warm in the San Juan Mountains. Yet she loves the idea of heritage pieces that get passed down over the years. “I’m fascinated by it because that’s not how my family was,” she says. “Those kinds of stories are beautiful.”
Hats are crafted in high-quality beaver felt.
Lake creates stories with each fully custom, fur-felted hat that she handcrafts in her Telluride-based workshop, Camp Bird (campbirdtelluride.com). “My hats are high-quality wearable art,” she says. “I’d love for people to give these hats to their children.”
Despite building her business entirely on word of mouth (there isn’t even a sign outside her studio), Camp Bird’s success has taken flight. Each of the roughly 140 hats Lake makes each year starts with a fitting session wherein she measures the exact size and shape of the client’s head and “gets to know someone and their vibe,” she says. Only offered in the winter and summer, appointments fill up within a week or two of opening.
For each hat, Lake makes a keepsake cedar last, which will help to maintain the hat’s custom shape and prevent shrinking over time. Then she sands the beaver felt, blocks the hat and shapes the crown. Next, she adds bespoke elements like dyed silk or grosgrain ribbon, pheasant feathers or symbols like mountains or stars—all chosen by the client. Everything, including dying the fabric and embroidering the details, is done by hand.
Despite the painstaking process, Lake finds that the hardest part is nudging clients to choose a unique mantra, song lyric or saying to be stamped in gold foil on the interior sheepskin sweatband. “It stumps a lot of people,” Lake says, “but it’s the most lovely part of the story.”
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