Girl Power Blog
Size Matters
I have always had an affinity for hats. Growing up, the women in my life were hat ladies. However, because I have a small head, I could never find a hat that fit me properly. The one-size-fits-all type of hat never worked for me. Then I discovered this secret: the key to pulling off a hat that is slightly too big is hat sizing reducer tape. I wish I had known this a long time ago.
First, know your hat size. Here’s how to measure your head to ensure the best fit. Using a fabric tape measure, find the widest part of your skull from the back, and wrap the tape around above your ears and across your eyebrows. Stick one finger under the tape to give your hat some room. This is your hat circumference. Use that measurement to determine your hat size. See each hat description for specific sizing information.
Your hat should sit comfortably mid-forehead above your eyebrows and not obstruct your view. The sweatband inside the hat should provide a snug fit, not a tight fit. How you wear your hat is personal style. Play with tilting your hat, you may like the look of your hat tilted to one side, or adopt the French practice of wearing your hat tilted back on your head. This makes it easy to greet someone with La Bise or The Kiss on each cheek.
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Cheers!
Karen
Beach Road is pleased to support other women-owned small businesses.
Meet Charlotte Goodie – Beach Road’s Seamstress Extraordinaire
Charlotte and I have been friends since 2003. I was looking for someone to do window treatments for my home, and a mutual friend recommended Charlotte. As it turned out, our youngest children were friends and went to school together. I love a great connection.
Since our first meeting, Charlotte has made custom window treatments and pillows for me and performed peerless dress alterations for my daughter, and I have passed her name to anyone and everyone looking for a wizard with a needle. In 2022, when Beach Road needed a seamstress, she was at the top of the list. Today, Charlotte makes each Beach Road hat band, bow tie, and pet accessory by hand, in Virginia.
Charlotte is an expert with a lifetime of practice and experience. She started sewing at the age of 10, hand stitching doll clothes, and with the help of her sister, quickly moved on to the sewing machine. While working at a fabric store in 1998, she met a bride who wanted a custom wedding dress … since then, her bridal business has grown to over 25 brides every year coming to see her from the Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC region, and outside the area from Texas, Colorado, New York, and Georgia. She has designed custom gowns for brides, redesigned vintage bridal gowns, made christening gowns out of grandmothers’ wedding dresses, and created bridesmaid dresses, mother of the bride dresses, and evening gowns for special occasions. You can see why we rely so heavily on her.
Charlotte’s business is word of mouth, and we are proud to spread the word and share her talent and skill. You can email her at c_goodie@yahoo.com.
Even though she is busy, Charlotte and her husband, Howard, love to travel to visit family, especially her twin grandbabies that live out of the area. She also has time for her hobbies which include just about anything you can do with a needle and thread: embroidery, cross stitch, macrame, crochet, and hardanger embroidery.
Want to sign up to receive our blog posts via email? Send an email to karenhockman@beachroadus.com and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram @beachroadus.
Cheers!
Karen
Beach Road is pleased to support other women-owned small businesses.
New Palm Beach Collaboration
Beach Road US is excited to announce our latest collaboration. We’ve teamed up with Palm Beach artist Junior Sandler.
We are thrilled to work with Junior. Her art has a coastal motif, with exciting pops of color and floral themes that capture the energy and feel of Palm Beach. We selected her blue Aster painting for our first hat bands that will be available for purchase January 2023.
Ours is not the first collaboration for Junior. She teamed up with interior designer and store owner Lauren Haskell at shoplohome.com. Through this partnership, Junior’s artwork has been made into pillows, wallpaper, fabric, and pottery.
Junior is well known in Palm Beach and has been featured in Traditional Home, Luxe Magazine and Mat* Mann About Town. Her art also hangs in private residences in London and Australia, as well as in the Paul Fisher Gallery at the Brazilian Court Hotel.
Junior can be reached through her Instagram account @JuniorSandler.
Please follow us on Instagram @beachroadus, LinkedIn Beach Road, and Facebook or email us contact@beachroadus.com.
Cheers!
Karen
www.beachroadus.com
Beach Road is pleased to work with female entrepreneurs and to support other women-owned businesses.
Something About Mary
Mary Dunn Griffin
There is something special about working with Mary Dunn Griffin. For me, Mary is part of my childhood. Growing up in the Florida Keys, the Dunns were part of my Keys family. Her sister, Donna, is one of my besties. I knew her parents and I know each of her siblings. Mary just feels like home.
And now, grown up, Mary has created a very successful business and has made a name for herself in the photography industry. One of her specialties is real estate photography, which she has been perfecting since 2014. We were all excited when she was selected as the photographer for Jon Landau’s (Titanic and Avatar producer) home in the Florida Keys that went up for sale in 2022. Mary’s images can be seen in Forbes magazine (https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendarichardson/2022/01/07/titantic-and-avatar-producer-jon-landau-lists-florida-keys-home-for-139-million/?sh=3e4a81f7194d). Mary has also graciously produced my professional headshots.
We were so fortunate when Mary was available to photograph our Beach Road US fashion shoot in the Keys. Her gorgeous photos will grace the pages on our Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and website. We hope to set up another shoot in the Keys in February.
I have worked with many photographers over the years, but Mary is special. She makes you feel comfortable during your session, and the models trust her professional direction. Everyone is at ease and the photos are always fabulous. She also knows how to rock a great hat!
Contact Mary at https://marydgriffin.com. Please also follow us on Instagram and visit our website to see some of Mary’s beautiful work.
Beach Road US is pleased to support other women-owned businesses.
Cheers,
Karen
www.beachroadus.com
https://www.instagram.com/beachroadus/
Meet Fabric Designer Emily Barrett of Fox Burrow Designs
Meet Emily Barrett of Fox Burrow Designs. If you are anything like me, I can, and have spent hours in a good fabric store lusting over the colors, textiles and design of bolts and bolts of beautiful fabric. It can be so overwhelming, in a good way. When Joy and I started Beach Road US, we knew we wanted to start with coastal fabrics for our hat bands. Coastal design is in our soul, it’s what we grew up with. Just looking at the Offshore or Fishing the Flats hat bands can transport us back to younger days in the Florida Keys.
We were having so much fun picking fabrics. The problem we found with some fabrics is they didn’t fit the scale we needed. In order for our hat bands to fit all of our hats they need to be no more than two inches in height. This became a problem. We loved Emily’s designs but could not use some of them. After contacting Emily, she assured us that the scale was easy to change because it was all done on the computer, and we could not be happier. The most important thing about working with Emily, she is always professional, she responds to calls and emails in a timely manner. She meets the deadline she sets. She will continue to tweak the custom design to get it exactly how we envisioned. Emily can be reached at design@foxburrowdesigns.com
Look how great the custom designs of the Worth Avenue Clock Tower and our new Bridal bands turned out!
Cheers,
Karen
Worth Avenue Clock Tower - custom designed by Fox Burrow Designs for Beach Road US
Bride Tribe & Bride to Be - custom designed by Fox Burrow Designs for Beach Road US
Beach Road US is pleased to work with female entrepreneurs and to support women-owned businesses.
Choosing the right hat style
“Saying you don’t look good in hats is like saying you don’t look good in shoes.”
The issue is not the hat, it’s finding the right hat.
Here are the Beach Road Hats professional guidelines.
First, you want a hat that complements your face shape. Second, you need the self-confidence to pull off a hat. If you feel fabulous, you will look fabulous, we promise. Once you know your face shape, search for images of those celebrities wearing hats. The styles that flatter them will likely flatter you as well. Check Pinterest, too. Above all, just have fun.
Let’s start with the shape of your face.
Determining your face shape can be tricky. Yes, there are rules, but sometimes you may fall into two categories. Your face shape is be determined by three things:
· Forehead and cheekbone width
· Jawline
· Face length
There are 6 basic face shapes.
Round
If your cheekbones are the widest part of your face, you probably have a round face. Round faces are more symmetrical, and a round face shape means your face has about the same width and length, with a rounded jawline and chin. Round faces tend to be circular in appearance and have no major angles or edges.
Celebrities with Round Faces: Drew Barrymore, Isla Fisher, Mila Kunis, and Hayden Panettiere.
Best hat style for Round faces: Lean toward hats with opposite features – angular, rather than rounded, styles work best. A retro-style fedora (The Michala) works well. A cloche (The Kaitlyn) is a versatile hat; for a Round face, experiment wearing it brim up or down.
Diamond
Diamond and heart-shaped faces can sometimes seem interchangeable, but diamond faces have their own unique traits: Diamond faces have a narrow forehead and a small chin. Cheekbones will be the widest part of your face, and sit nice and high. Your forehead won’t be as wide as someone with a heart-shaped face.
Celebrities with Diamond shape faces: Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Aniston.
Best hat styles for Diamond faces: Diamond faces tend to be very angular. To balance out these sharp angles, fedoras like the Michala look fabulous, worn straight on the head or pushed back. Additionally, a pinched hat crown will provide symmetry for the tapered chin. Hats with a moderate brim like the Jacqueline are also recommended.
Heart
A heart-shaped face typically has a larger, wider forehead. Then the face gets more angled towards the chin, finishing into a point. Heart-shaped faces are somewhat similar to round faces, but with a wider forehead and a slender jawline.
Celebrities with Heart Shaped Face: Reese Witherspoon, Audrey Hepburn, and Naomi Campbell.
Best hat styles for Heart shaped faces: Like Audrey, you look good in pretty much any style. You're going to want a hat that will help to detract from the width of the forehead, so try a cloche (The Kaitlyn), fedora (The Michala), or a boater (The Jacqueline).
Oval
Oval and long faces are often interchanged. A long face is an elongated version of an oval, and oval faces are longer than they are wide, with a round chin and jawline.
Celebrities with Oval shaped faces: Cameron Diaz, Courteney Cox, Julia Roberts, and Brigitte Bardot.
Best hat style for Oval shaped faces: Classic boater (The Jacqueline), cloche (The Kaitlyn), or wide-brimmed (The Marena).
Rectangular
The Rectangular face shape is a hybrid of the oval/long and square-shaped face. It’s essentially the long face, with angular edges. Rectangular-shaped faces feature a square jaw and a face that is longer than it is wide, with a high forehead.
Celebrities with Rectangular shape face: Hillary Swank, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Angelina Jolie.
Best hats for Rectangular face: Cloche (The Kaitlyn), fedora (The Michala), and wide-brimmed (The Marena).
Square
The key to a Square face is the jawline. With a square face shape, your forehead, cheekbones, and jaw will be the same width, and your jaw will have sharp angles. Square face shapes are similar in appearance to round faces, but have a more pronounced, wide jawline. A square face has very minimal curves to it.
Celebrities with a Square shaped face: Sandra Bullock, Demi Moore, and Katie Holmes.
Best hats for Square faces are Fedoras (The Michala) and wide-brimmed (The Marena).
Keep in mind – these are only guidelines! Pick a hat that you love and feel fabulous wearing. Have the confidence to channel your inner celebrity, and go for it.
Beach Road Hats, in the business of empowering women.