Chapeau Creations Hats

A true treat to find unique, artful, and well-​made derby hats. Elaine (the owner/​designer) was accommodating to my last minute work schedule. My mom and I intended on only buying pink hats for The Oaks Pink Out! theme (for the female horse races the day before the Derby at Churchill Downs), since we both already had our Derby hats. But when we got there, we both fell in love with many of Chapeau Creations’ other hats and we’re very tempted to buy more than one hat each! I received a lot of compliments on my hat from Chapeau Creations and felt special wearing it, since there was nothing else like it at Churchill Downs. It was truly one of a kind. I wish I had bought my Derby hat there too, which I had gotten at Nordstroms for half the price but saw 4 other women with my same hat in my section alone! I like that Elaine buys good quality materials and that her hats aren’t mass produced. My mom and I had a lot of fun trying on her full selection of hats and fascinators. I only wish that a hat box was included with the price of my hat, because they’re so hard to find (I tried 6 places without luck) and for better transport/​storage.

Was happy to find Chapeau Creations on Unilocal!and to discover they were just a few minutes away from Old Orchard Shopping Center. There was a huge array of hats from which to choose! Elaine was kind, helpful and accommodating when I couldn’t decide and had to make an extra trip back to see her. In addition she had creative solutions for customizing the hat to my outfit. Brava! Thanks very much!

I found out at the very last minute that I had tickets to this year’s Kentucky Derby so, naturally, the scramble began to find a great hat. I had no clue where to get a nice hat and I had no time so I checked out the major department stores’ selection online first. Boring, boring, boring. So the search began for a real hat designer. If I was going to the Derby, I was going to do it right!
I found Chapeau Creations on Unilocal (of course) and took a look at their website. They definitely have a lot of different Derby hats so I called them up and spoke with Elaine. It seems like a lot of hat designers make their hats custom but, thankfully, Elaine told me that, while she does custom hats, she also had some ready to wear hats to choose from. Phew! I made an appointment to come in the day before my flight.
In order to get a better idea of what I was looking for, she gave me a password for the website so I could browse the collection and pick out some of my favorites to try on at the appointment.
When I got to my appointment, she had a wide variety of hats in all different colors for me to try. She had all of the styles I had picked out and a variety of others available just in case. It was definitely difficult narrowing it down to just one. In the end I liked one style but in a different color. Elaine was able to modify the hat in the color I liked so that I could have exactly what I wanted. She said she was also able to adjust it to swoop a certain way if I would have wanted. I chose to keep it just as it was.
The day at the Derby was amazing and I got tons of compliments on my beautiful hat. Now, if I ever go again, I know who to call first!