SHEro in Fashion

“There is Power in wearing a hat.”

By Sasha Hollins, Zydiora Jones, and Nariyah Reynolds

LAGRANGE, KY- Did you know there are two kinds of coverings for your head? One is a hat. A hat covers your head. The other is a fastener. A fastener is a headpiece that covers only part of your head.

The Explorers learned this and other cool hat facts during a visit with milliner (hatmaker) Jenny Pfanenstiel. We visited the worldfamous hatmaker at her downtown Louisville shop, Formé Millinery. We also visited her millinery, Judith M Millinery Supply House, in LaGrange, just outside Louisville. She owns one of only three milliner shops in the United States.

“I began sewing at the age of seven,” Pfanenstiel said during our visit to her cute little hat shop in downtown Louisville. She learned her amazing sewing skills from her mother and grandmother. Her dream was to become a costume designer for Broadway productions. After attending a hat-making workshop in Europe, she returned to Chicago and focused on the craft. Word spread of her amazing creations, and she soon began making hats for those who attended the Kentucky Derby. Today, she is the official hatmaker for the Derby. Her fans buy her creations in the price range from $250 to $3,200!

Walking into her shops was like walking into a fairytale. Everything looked like it came right out of a storybook. Many of her hats are one-of-a-kind because they are based on the customer’s personality. She once made a hat for a customer to enter a hat competition. The hat was in the shape of a martini glass with an olive coming out. Of course, the women won the competition.

Left page: Explorers pose with Jenny Pfanenstiel and their newly created fastener head wear. Clockwise: The Explorers prepare to create a fastener hat. * Cianna gets creative. * Jyllian helps her daughter Juliana with her project.

“There is never a hat too big, and no hat too small,” Pfanenstiel said.

Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama have worn her creations. Costume designers for Broadway and Disney productions often contact her for hats to use in their movies and plays. She has even created hats for royalty and the wealthy who want her one-of-a-kind creations to wear to the Kentucky Derby.

Pfanenstiel said her success is possible because of husband who ships her creations to customers around the world.

“I like dealing with the people,” Bart said. “I like talking with them and learning their story to help them find what they want.”

Their millinery shop offers classes for those who want to learn to make their own hat, and has all the supplies needed. Pfanenstiel is a hat miracle worker and has a very gifted talent for making unique hats. She gave us a whole new perspective on a new career to think about. We can’t wait to hear more in the future about Jenny Pfanenstiel.

By Jasmine and Juliana Liggins and Kaylee Hampton

We rumbled and shook as we traveled through time, back to the making of Noah’s Ark. Well, not really, but it felt like it because we were in a virtual reality experience at the Ark Encounter. The Merze Tate Explorers took a trip to Williamsburg, Kentucky, to the Ark Encounter, the most authentic replica of Noah’s Ark in the world! It has a farm with animals, plants, exhibits, and entertainment.

Juliana

I was so excited when we drove on the bus to the entrance. I was curious to see what the inside and outside of the Ark looked like. I was also really excited because we would see a virtual reality short film about how Noah and his sons built the ark. When we got to the virtual reality room, we were seated in a room with up to four big seats. We put on our special VR glasses. It was really fun to see how the ark was made and how people didn’t believe Noah. After the time travel experience, we went inside Noah’s Ark (or at least what it might have looked like.) I think it was interesting to learn about the ark and how eight people (Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives) survived on the ark for 200 days. I didn’t know they stayed on the ark for almost a year after the rain stopped.

Jasmine

The Ark Encounter was such a surreal experience. Seeing the ark’s size and the number of plants and animals that could fit was amazing. The process of building the ark took so much work and preparation. The Ark Encounter brochure states, “The ark is 510 feet long and over 7 stories high.” When I was close to it, I felt really small in comparison. In the Bible, God told Noah to build the ark with Gopher wood, but the ark replica is built with Douglas fir, Engelmann spruce, radiata pine, bamboo, and white fir. Even though everything was sculpted, it looked and felt so real, especially the living spaces. While going through the top deck of the ark, we saw Noah and his family’s living quarters. They had the essentials for living. They had a kitchen, a living room, and a room for each person. They had plenty of food stored to survive for to 200 days.

The Ark Encounter was a very educational and detailed biblical exhibit. Going through the exhibit was fascinating; we even learned things we didn’t know about from reading the Bible. Something that I didn’t know until I got to the Ark, was the amount of people in the Ark.

Kaylee

I saw the many prehistorical animals on the ark that are now extinct. We learned that, after the flood, Noah had all the animals in cages that he released at certain times. Very big pottery containers were neatly placed on all levels of the ark as an example of how the fruit and grain were stored on the ark for the people and animals to eat. We learned that there were 6,744 animals on the ark that all could have been making a lot of noise for those 40 days of the flood. After the experience, I was surprised and shocked.