Albertus Swanepoel fedora. Natural raffia w/ shiny thread. Black satin band/bow.

Designer in NYC by way of South Africa. Celebrity following. RIP July 2024 African-born milliner and recipient of the 2009 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund runner-up award. A hands-on maker, Swanepoel is a graduate of the University of Pretoria, where he studied graphic design. He established and had great success with his own clothing line back home before trading the “stiflingly conservativ[ism]” (as his website puts it) of his home country for the heady freedom that is the eternal promise of New York. I honor the great craft of millinery and make it relevant for today,” Swanepoel wrote. “It’s about being handmade (not homemade), witty (not funny) and nowadays (not nostalgic),” he said in an interview with Pnina Fenster. Those values now live on in Swanepoel’s work.