A RIVERINA milliner has made a name for bold, eye-catching designs, Sandra Godwin reports.
AS a young girl growing up in country NSW, Danica Erard collected hats.
But it wasn't until three years ago that she was overtaken by a passion for making them.
"I was always the one with a hat on my head, so I'm surprised it took me that long to get back into (it)," she says.
From an 8000ha sheep station 20km west of Deniliquin, in southern NSW, Danica has spent the past few months working from dawn to dusk creating hats for racegoing women across the country.
"I think the hat is really 'the smile of the outfit'," Danica says.
Mostly self-taught, Danica says she begins each spring with a palette of colours in mind, before choosing designs based on the materials she has ordered.
"From there, I will make up about 20 pieces which I have in my mind and I hold a showing in September," she says.
"People will say they like a piece and take it or come up with their outfit and say, 'can you design me something that goes with this?"'
Danica's first hat was a headpiece made on request to match a woman's spring carnival outfit in 2002.
"I was a bit apprehensive at first but I'm a perfectionist so I set out about finding all the materials I needed to make this headpiece match her outfit to a tee," she says.
"She said I had a talent and should keep making them."
But it took another few years for Danica to take her millinery skills seriously.
One of four children of tailor John-Paul Erard, and a former Grace Bros window dresser, Vanda Helsby, Danica grew up with a fashion, despite living in Deniliquin, where jeans and boots are the norm.
The horse-mad teenager had a wardrobe full of clothes she'd "chopped up and altered" and knew the value of accessories, helping girlfriends co-ordinate outfits for a night on the town.
At 20, Danica followed the bright lights to Melbourne in search of work.
"I worked at David Jones for five years and I've taken a lot of my inspiration from the people I met - beautifully dressed women who are serious about fashion," she says.
Despite the excitement of city living, Danica's heart belonged in the country.
So with partner Damien Farmer, she headed back to the bush to manage sheep stations near Balranald and Condoblin.
"It was quite funny. As soon as we got together, we're like, 'let's go to the country. What are we doing here?" she says.
With Damien now managing Mulloka Station, Danica has a sunroom where she works, stores materials and displays her finished products on what she calls her "Fishy Chicks" - long-necked polystyrene heads covered in fishnet stockings.
She juggles work with caring for their son Oscar, 5.
"I try and dedicate 9am to 3pm to hats while Oscar's at school, unless I'm on the two-way radio or helping Damien chase sheep or marking lambs or entertaining visitors. And when Oscar's home I'm back on mum duty," she says.
There's no escaping the hats elsewhere in the house, with boxes of feathers stacked on the floor in the study and tools for blocking and shaping hat fabrics lurking on the kitchen bench within reach of a steaming kettle.
Danica says she prefers to ignore most of the traditional rules of millinery but she has several unbreakable rules of her own.
Hats, headpieces and fascinators are sculpted to be worn to the right of a woman's head. This enables a male escort to stand to her left without the risk of being poked in the eye.
``Being a perfectionist, it doesn't leave the house unless it's well made and it's got my name on it. And it has to pass the shake test,'' Danica says.
``But I'm not afraid to experiment or try different ideas.''
Danica's favourite hat _ apart from a cheeky red felt number she made for herself _ is a silver, disc-shaped headpiece featuring silk flowers she made last year for Melbournesociety doyenne Lillian Frank.
Danica says Lillian wore it to a charity fundraiser and liked it so much she commissioned another for this year.
"So I'm really excited about that,'' Danica says.
Living hundreds of kilometres from suppliers, Danica can't just pop down the road if she runs short of something.
"I've got to think ahead,'' she says.
"I've got to get on the phone and hope we're talking about the same chartreuse, or the same blue.
"Sometimes I'll be eagerly awaiting a parcel only to go 'Oh my god, it's not the same teal!'.
"That's the challenge. But the bonus is, I feel like I'm going to make my mark as a milliner from the country, so I have to work that bit harder for it.''
Danica is optimistic that hats will make a return to fashion for occasions other than race meetings.
"I'm not going to say we'll see women walking down the street with gloves and a hat on just to get the groceries,'' she says.
"But I'm making specialised bridal headpieces for weddings, with flowers in silk to match the dress, as well as for 21sts and wedding guests.''
