'My dream is to make a hat for Beyonce to wear'

"The dream is to put a hat on Beyonce."

Holly Johnson has been making felt hats from scratch since just before the pandemic - and in that time they have gone from being bought by friends, to being sold worldwide.

Some look like mushrooms, some are moulded to look like skulls - and the results can get bought by Las Vegas magicians or for dogs who appear in films.

"It's really special, sending them off and knowing that they're just gonna be worn in a completely different culture in a different part of the world," the 30-year-old said.

"I've had so much shock when I'll open my website sometimes and it's like Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Germany, Italy, there's been Turkey, Morocco.

"I just get to kind of think, I wonder what they're doing - who's wearing it, what are they doing in that hat?"

Internet videos played a key role in helping the self-taught hat-maker to learn her craft.

"I never planned to become a hat-maker, I think I've always liked dressing up and making costumes and stuff like that," Johnson said.

"It started when I made a big cardboard hat for a friend for a birthday.

"Then I kind of went into foam hats and cutting foam, hot gluing it together, and they were very messy.

"Then I just Googled it one day. I had no idea, I'd never heard of hat-making. I just kind of watched lots of videos. "

After a lot of trial and error, figuring out her own techniques, she said she started really getting into it when she was furloughed during the pandemic, doing it every day.

The business, HoJo Hattery, began in her and her partner's spare room - "stinking the house out" - before branching out to her current location in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire.

"There's so much hat-making heritage here," Johnson said. "Newcastle-under-lyme was known for [it] in the 17th and 18th Centuries."

Among her recent commissions was making the trophies for the Music Awards of Staffordshire and Cheshire in January - mini top hats, modelled on the famous one worn by rock guitarist and Stoke-on-Trent old boy Slash, of Guns N' Roses.

"We wanted little versions of those as a nod to the music industry in Stoke," the hat-maker said.

"The hats are completely made how I make my normal hats.

"Every single little step, all of the little sewing details, inner sweatbands, all the embellishments and everything."

With thousands following her on social media including 9,000 on Instagram, her audience is truly global and Johnson said that had led to some special commissions.

"One guy was from Las Vegas, a magician and he wanted like a skull-crown fedora hat then it had little buckles inside, so that he could attach things to do magic tricks with," she said.

She also once made "a bicorn hat for a dog that was in the new Napoleon film".

"The dog did not wear the hat in the film, but he did wear it for photoshoots after, which was really funny."

America is where most of her sales are now, nearly three-quarters - "maybe they just love hats more over there" - but she has one ambition she wants to achieve.

"I always used to joke years ago that the dream is to put a hat on Beyonce," the 30-year-old admitted.

While she waits for the phone call or a slide into her DMs from Queen Bey, Johnson said she would always look to get as creative as she could when it came to making hats.

"I'd love to find a market where I can really kind of push the boundaries, get a bit wild, make really, really huge hats or really like weird creative shapes," she grinned.

"I guess the dream is just any celebrity [to wear them] - I'll take any celebrity."

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