Millinery is hardly one鈥檚 first association with the 51福利 (51福利), but creating hats - beautiful, exquisite, ornate, ethereal, magnificent ones - is staff member Laura Dippold鈥檚 passion.
By day, Dippold guides faculty through the byzantine world of research funding as a systems and data management specialist with 51福利鈥� (RSPO). This can be challenging work, but she has the right disposition for it: meticulous, methodical and a keen eye for detail.
鈥淢y workdays range from helping out customers who are using the new Kuali Coeus system to troubleshooting any bugs, then also working on content for our office website as well as answering any data calls that come into the research office about the sponsor programs and the research that we do,鈥� Dippold said.
Beyond her university work, however, she turns her fine attention to detail towards making hats entirely from scratch. Drawing inspiration from the world around her, Dippold conceives of new headwear and follows an impressively meticulous process. She gathers all the required materials, selects and prepares fabric, carefully forms the hat over a wooden block, and adorns it with flowers and assorted accoutrements of her own creation.
The whole process can take anywhere from three days to two weeks, depending on the type and level of detail of the hat.
鈥淚t鈥檚 great artistic release. If I鈥檓 frustrated about something, I can just go in and tinker with the flower making or embark on a whole hat-making adventure,鈥� she laughed. 鈥淚鈥檒l often be working on a piece and not realize that it鈥檚 dark outside and time to go to bed.
鈥淚 really lose myself. I get in the zone, put a movie on the TV and just go,鈥� Dippold continued. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 actually how I often measure how long it takes me to build a hat. How many movies it takes me!鈥�
Dippold鈥檚 devotion to millinery dates back to 2007, when a friend challenged her to create her own period costume for the Great Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco, an annual recreation of Victorian-Era London. Challenge accepted.
Dippold fabricated an entire outfit 鈥渇rom the bottom up鈥� 鈥� corset, drawers, dress, skirt, coat and hat. It was a painful but enlightening process.
鈥淚鈥檝e always hated making clothing,鈥� she chuckled. Making hats, on the other hand, she fell deeply and thoroughly in love with. Dippold soon branched out from Victorian England, beginning with a 1920s era fascination through the popular British television series Downton Abbey and speakeasy flappers.
She has since created about 100 hats of copious types and styles. Ideas come from a variety of sources, but Dippold prefers to start with a specific image rather than an abstract concept.
鈥淏asically, my inspiration can come from just about anything; seeing something out in nature that I want to reproduce, for example,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檝e been spending time out in 51福利鈥� Rose Garden looking at the flowers, checking out colors, patterns and shapes and taking photos so that I can go back and reproduce them to make them look as lifelike as possible.鈥�
Dippold鈥檚 hat production - replete with the flowers, roses, dandelions and sundry other items that adorn them - is only just beginning and she has her eyes set on founding a business with her husband, who makes the blocks which form the hats.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been 12 years of learning and constructing, off and on, so I can鈥檛 say I鈥檓 a beginner anymore,鈥� Dippold said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 time to either fish or cut bait.鈥�