The Milliner’s Tale

Ignatius Creegan began crafting hats three decades ago

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Shopping & Style

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.