The Milliner’s Tale

Ignatius Creegan began crafting hats three decades ago

by

For more than 15 years, Joseph Ignatius Creegan and his partner, Rod Givens, used the old mansion at 204 S. Market St. in Petersburg as a dwelling, a studio and a showroom for their creations: hats. Now, they are moving their business, Ignatius Hats, into a building at 25 Sycamore St. Creegan recently talked with Richmond magazine about his career as a milliner.

Richmond magazine: You’re 30 years into the business. What did you do before you started making hats?

Ignatius Creegan: [A] friend was looking for a studio, and he found one in the milk bottle of Richmond Dairy. … I started using the studio to carve stone and work on stained glass. That’s when I started using the name Ignatius, my middle name. … Ever since 1985, I’ve been using the name for my work.

RM: When did you make your first hat?

Creegan: The Richmond Dairy Building was a derelict building. It was missing windows. … To stay warm, I cut up a fur coat into a fur hat. That was my first hat.

RM: Who buys your hats?

Creegan: There’s certainly always wedding events where people are looking for hats. Then there’s sporting events like the Kentucky Derby. For the racing scene, it’s a requirement for the outfit that you have a good hat if you’re actually going.

RM: Do you have a particular style of hat that you like to make the most?

Creegan: I like wheat-straw braid. It’s a specialty. You might think of it as a straw you’d see on a boater. It comes to me as a bundle of straw, and it’s braided like a shoelace. Then I sew that into a hat body.

RM: You do a lot of historical work for television programs and movies. Is there an era or decade that you make the most of?

Creegan: We’re about to start working on a Showtime movie series about the abolitionist John Brown. We’re starting a collection of men’s hats for that, as well as women’s hats from the 1850s and ‘60s. … There will be eight seasons, so we’ll be doing this for a while.