【Teacher Li Youqun】Taste Paris Workshop – Design Your Own Unique Hat

Originally published onLi Youqun

If you have the chance to visit Saint-Germain in Paris’s Left Bank, be sure not to miss this hat boutique named La cerise sur le chapeau.

Paris is the fashion capital of the world, so it seems only natural that you’d go on a shopping spree for stylish goods when visiting the City of Light. But for true Parisians, shopping isn’t limited to the Champs-Élysées or the Marais and Montmartre districts — and wearing designer brands isn’t a must either.

Tasteful Parisians love expressing their individuality through fashion. For them, treasure hunting in the alleys of Saint-Germain is a way to find delightful surprises. The greatest charm of La Cerise sur le Chapeau is that you can design and semi-customize your very own hat right here. Wearing a unique, one-of-a-kind accessory that you won’t see anyone else wearing on the street perfectly matches the Parisian definition of taste and style.

I arrived at La Cerise sur le Chapeau on New Year’s Eve, a place I had long wanted to visit. The storefront is adorable, with a royal blue sign featuring an illustration of a hat, and the warm, cozy interior gives off a colorful impression. The walls and shelves display all kinds of brightly colored, beautiful hats, almost like stepping into an afternoon tea salon filled with colorful macarons — except here, they sell hats.

Calling La Cerise sur le Chapeau just a hat shop isn’t entirely accurate — it’s more like a workshop. The staff are both hat artisans and the customers are the designers. They offer various hat samples, allowing you to engage in “semi-customization.” You start by choosing your preferred style, then selecting felt or straw material, and next deciding on your favorite colors using a color chart, including the hat body, the ribbon encircling the hat, and the accent bows.

The shop assistant, who had been sitting and carefully sewing another customer’s custom hat, kindly stood up to greet me. Since my goal was to personally design a hat of my own, I began discussing earnestly with her, trying on various styles, and then, a bit shyly, letting her measure my slightly larger-than-average head size...

Most hat styles are geared more toward women, so I chose one called “Amant” — a slightly unisex, medium-brimmed fedora with a wider brim, the highlight being that it makes your face look smaller.

To welcome the New Year, I also did a live online broadcast here for the classmates of “Lady, We’re the Best,” aiming to gift a hat from here as a New Year present to a lucky friend. So, for the first time ever, I asked everyone for their opinions during the live stream. Classmates watching from Paris, Taiwan, and around the world connected in real-time to co-design a truly unique French hat (interested viewers should definitely check out the replay and join the event — maybe that hat will be yours!).

When in Paris, of course, you should go for an elegant style like what French ladies would wear — the “Cloche” bell-shaped hat is perfect. With its round top and narrow brim, it’s cute and retro, making you feel like a fashionable French noblewoman from the 1950s watching a horse race in Monaco.

And since it’s the New Year, the result of our “Taiwan-France connection” was to use a “red” felt hat, with the surrounding ribbon in “blue” and “white” — isn’t that the color scheme of the French flag? See? It has both an Eastern red vibe and a French flair — how wonderful. Placed next to my “blue woven hat,” it looked like a couple, co-designing hats together across the ocean via livestream — so much fun.

Besides the two styles mentioned above, there’s also the classic gentleman’s hat style “Classique,” the French-favored “Trendy” with slightly upturned brims, and the “Capeline,” a wide-brimmed round-top hat that suits refined ladies very well.

My advice is, since you’re at the colorful La Cerise sur le Chapeau, go bold with your color combinations. For example, a deep purple hat body paired with a peach-pink ribbon, or dark gray clashing with lemon yellow — using contrasting combinations of warm and cool tones, or extending the same tone in varying shades, all create a lovely sweet vibe. Of course, soft pink like cherry blossoms and baby blue will be very popular in spring and are great choices too.

However, if you’re not considering the season, I think choosing felt material gives off more of a Parisian vibe.

After deciding on the design elements, the staff will start crafting directly in the workshop, and it takes about three hours to finish. During the wait, I visited Notre-Dame Cathedral on the Île de la Cité, enjoying some of Paris’s beautiful scenery. When I returned to La Cerise sur le Chapeau in the evening, the two “hat couples” I had designed earlier were waiting for me on the table. They made for the most special New Year’s gifts because they’re truly one of a kind.

La Cerise sur le Chapeau
Address: 11 Rue Cassette, 75006 Paris
Phone: +33 1 45 49 90 53

Li Youqun / International Fashion Director

A leading figure in the Chinese fashion circle, holder of the record for most fashion magazine founding editor-in-chiefs. Active in the entertainment industry, he is the designated collaborating teacher for fashion shows such as “Lady, We’re the Best,” and also serves as the designated stylist for international brands and A-list celebrities. Centered around fashion, he is the only figure in China representing a diverse range of roles including editor-in-chief, fashion director, stylist, and author.

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