‘A hat for everybody’: Sask. milliner instills confidence with fancy hats

Everyone who tells Sherri Hrycay they ‘aren’t really a hat person’ is met with the same response: a sigh, a roll of the eyes, and a playful challenge to reconsider.

“I’ve got one picked out for you already!” she says with a smile.

The Saskatoon milliner spends her days crafting exquisite headwear by hand at her City Park business, Sova Design Millinery & Apparel.

“As soon as someone walks into my shop I’ll say ‘I know what that person needs to wear,’” she said in an interview with 650 CKOM. “There’s a hat for everybody!”

The walls of Hrycay’s shop feature a kaleidoscope of hats in every colour, shape and size.

Hrycay creates some simple hats for everyday wear, but many of her designs are vibrantly coloured and decorated with bows, feathers and felt flowers.

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“If anybody comes up to me and says ‘I’m going to the Kentucky Derby or the Queen’s garden party,’ it’s like ‘Yes! Let’s have some fun,’” she said.

Hrycay’s millinery journey began in 2000.

“After my first child was born, I started to do the stay-at-home mom thing, and just literally picked up one day and started making hats,” she said.

With few hat-making resources available at the time, she said she learned the craft through books and by studying examples of vintage hats.

Many of her creations are crafted from felt, meticulously molded and steamed over wooden hat blocks.

Hrycay spent many hours mastering her craft through trial and error, gradually refining her techniques and understanding of the art form.

She said the top resources new milliners will need are time and patience.

“Don’t take a two-hour tutorial on YouTube or whatever and think that you know what you’re doing,” she laughed. “Do some training and practise, practise, practise!”

The years Hrycay invested into her craft have led to a career in millinery that has brought her — and her hats — around the world.

She’s taken master classes in France, England, and even Australia, and her hats have been worn by a number of celebrities.

“Megan Markle has my hat,” she said. “It was gifted actually, from the Saskatchewan government. We documented the travel of the hat box to to Buckingham Palace. It was pretty cool!”

Hrycay started out making mostly women’s hats, but has been incorporating more men’s headwear into her repertoire in recent years.

“Fedoras and pork pies are very, very popular,” she said. “In summer they want to protect their heads from the sun; winter they want to protect their heads from the cold. There are a lot more hat lovers out there than you’d think!”

While Hrycay’s designs have won over a lot of locals, including one loyal customer who owns more than 80 of her hats, she said some people are still hesitant to wear eye-catching designs.

“A lot of people have a hard time wearing hats, because they think it draws attention to them,” she explained. “And it does. I do find there’s a lot of confidence building that needs to happen.”

She said seeing people’s reactions and watching their confidence grow when they put on one of her handmade hats is an incredible feeling.

“I’m not a doctor. I’m not saving lives,” she said. “But confidence is a huge thing for people, and helping someone to feel good about themselves is the best thing.”

Should you choose to visit her hat shop in City Park, be prepared. If you aren’t a hat person yet, Hrycay might just turn you into one.