Topping the Trendsetters

In the fashion world, this is the stuff of fairy tales. Wearing a turquoise feather cloche of her own design, Eugenia Kim '96 was stopped on the street in N.Y.C. one day in January 1998 by five different store owners, all desperate to know who made her hat. Later that month Eugenia Kim hats hit the racks in the ultra-hip downtown bou- tiques Bond 07 and Selima Optique, popular hangouts for fashion editors on the style prowl. A few weeks later Kim had a deal to design hats for Barneys New York, and has since designed four collections for their New York, Tokyo, and Los Angeles stores.

Her handmade creations aim to make decadence part of the everyday, "to make people smile or laugh because they are wearing one of my hats," she says.

Cowboy hats, fedoras, and Chinese coolie hats are updated with colorful fur, feath- ers, and rich fabrics. From neoprene to silk flowers, every material is fair game, as her un- forgettable pea cock-feather mohawk attests. "I design with a liberal-arts perspective,'' she says. "I didn't go to fashion school, so I didn't think anything was impossible."

Her creative chapeaux, which sell for $90 to $450, have perched in the pages of TheNew York Times, Elle, Women's Wear Daily, and Mademoiselle, and on the heads of model Veronica Webb and entertainers Ashley Judd and Carmen Electra.

Hat lovers can now head to the source, her new boutique, Eugenia Kim, in the East Village, or call (212) 673-9787.

Kim's fur, feather, and fabric hats brighten magazine pages and N.Y.C. streets.