Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 5-19-17

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Renowned Hat Maker Lectures About Making Hats For Civil Rights Activist Dorothy Height
BY KENYA WOODARD Sentinel Feature Writer
ST. PETERSBURG – It’s said that queens fix each other’s crowns, but Harriet Rosebud goes a step further – she makes them.
Among her clientele are some well-known American roy- alty: the Queen of Soul, Ms. Aretha Franklin; the god- mother of Soul, Ms. Patti La- Belle, and the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement, the late Ms. Dorothy I. Height.
The latter was “an incredible lady” whose hats remained a staple of her wardrobe long after they ceased to be a fashion fa- vorite, Rosebud said.
Ms. Height’s mother and the women of her church heavily influenced her style, she said.
“She took dressing as if it was a badge of honor,” Rose- bud said.
On Saturday, Rosebud – a St. Petersburg native – returned to her hometown and regaled a captive audience at the Museum
The late DOROTHY HEIGHT
of Fine Art with tales about her role as Ms. Height’s milliner, one of the country’s most no- table Civil Rights leaders.
Accented with models don- ning hats from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1950s, Rosebud’s lecture traced the history of the hat as a fashion accessory in America.
The presentation is a com- panion event to the museum’s newest exhibit, “Dorothy Height’s Hats”, which opened last month. It runs until Sept. 4.
Like Ms. Height, Rose- bud said her love of hats was in- fluenced by her mother, Ms. Louisa Nixon.
Rosebud said she would watch her mother dress in her finest attire – complete with a hat – to participate in sit-ins at Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown St. Petersburg.
For activists like Ms. Nixon and Ms. Height, dressing well was part of the strategy in the fight for civil rights.
“It was a quiet dignity,” she said. “They looked for respect.”
Ms. Height was a leader who championed the rights of the poor, women, and the disen- franchised during a career that spanned more than 60 years.
Ms. Height – a longtime president of the National Coun- cil of Negro Women and a past president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. – was revered as much for her distinctive hats as she was her activism.
Rosebud’s journey from Florida State University gradu- ate to hat maker began in 1993.
Harriet Rosebud, a milliner and St. Petersburg native, poses with her mother Louisa Nixon at the Museum of Fine Arts after her lecture about late civil rights activist Dorothy Height and her hats.
Out of work and living in New York City, Rosebud began dabbling in millinery. Realizing she had a natural gift for the craft, she began pursuing it in earnest.
Rosebud studied millinery arts at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
She created her business, Rosebud of New York, and opened offices in New York City and Atlanta. Her collections have been sold in boutiques and department stores all over the country and she is one of the hat designers at the largest women’s dress hat factory in the country, American Hats, LLC.
Dorothy Height – a woman who wore many hats lit- erally and figuratively – lived her life assisting others, some- thing we could all do, Rosebud said.
“I challenge you to wear many more hats,” she said.
More About Millinery
Millinery, or hat making, dates back to the Middle Ages when the church decreed that women’s heads must be cov- ered. The term ‘milliner’ comes from the Italian city of Milan, where in the 1700s, the finest straws were braided and the best quality hat forms were made.
Sources: Vintage Fashion Guild and Harriet Rosebud
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