Gabriela Ligenza was born in 1959. She left Poland with her husband in the 1980s due to political and economic reasons. At the beginning of her emigration she commenced internship in an architectonical company in Brussels. From there Gabriela Ligenza went to London, where she did some odd-jobs.
Her story was influenced by a hat that she accidentally saw in some London club. It remained in her memory for so long that she decided to make her own. Gabriela’s friends liked the hat that she’d made so much that they persuaded her to make an entire collection of headwear. When the collection was completed, Gabriela Ligenza started to get in touch with fashion stores. Soon her hats were sold in over eighty boutiques all over the world. The brand’s growing popularity made it almost impossible to meet the growing demand. To create the best headwear, Gabriela Ligenza decided to set up her own showrooms. Her clients include many world-famous stars and aristocrats.
Interview by Sebastian Furtak and Jacek Debis in October 2011 in London.
- I didn’t expect anything. Undoubtedly we all wanted to live in a place where you can do what you really want to do in life, it’s so much easier.
- Good?
- No. Because I believe that only a handful of people can discover a talent in them, a talent they really have, during their lifetime So, whole life is like a string of trials and lessons learnt, trying out new ways. I think that there aren’t many people who are lucky enough to precisely define, when they are 18, what they will do in their lives and what they are able to do their whole life. However, I believe that the lack of such precision is not a negative thing.
I recall some things. I remember that one day I drove my beetle, I sailed on Batory from Gdynia to Tilbury and my car was on the ship as well. Now, when I think about it, it’s extravagance. But because my parents were so scared that I would be going by car across Europe, they just put me on Batory. I remember that I boarded Batory and there was this waiter and I asked for some tea. He enquired if I wanted any lemon in it. For me it sounded impossible. That was the first scent of the new reality. The fact that there was lemon to be had.
But I didn’t miss it. It was just a kind of arrogance, when one is 24–25 years old, when one just thinks of things to come.
I was at a night club with my friends and I just adored somebody’s hat. When I came home I decided to make one for me. I really don’t know why. And I still have it. This was a kind of first hat. A Turkish first but made of cloth. It was a cloth-made hat, sewn. I made it and I started to wear it and everyone became nicer to me. They told me that it was a great hat and asked me where I got it from. Somebody told me: “It’s such a nice hat, why don’t you make an entire collection of hats and caps and sell them to shops?”. And I did. I went to the best shop in London. It is still open. Unfortunately, the original owner died two years ago. It’s called „Joseph”. I went there and there was a man selling the best brands in the world. I spoke to him directly and he said: “I like it. You know, I would put your hats with such and such brand, it was called [0:01:33.5 nz]. I have no idea what they are doing but they are creating something else. Go and meet them, maybe you could use the same cloths, so that we could arrange the accessories and apparel together in the shop”. So I went to see them. We talked it over, I did what we’d arranged and this is how I began creating my collection. Then I walked into other very good shops. I rushed in from the street. I got really positive feedback. Everyone ordered some pieces and this how I began making hats for the rest of my life.
I created them more like an architect. As an artist. I had no idea how to make them. And when one looks at them from the outside and starts making something… I suppose if I started making films the first one would have been nice because I wouldn’t have any idea how to make it. I think it would have had a new element. I’m exaggerating but if you don’t know the tricks of the trade than maybe it’s easier to create something that breaks those rules. And it’s fresh. Besides, nobody made hats back then. Maybe Steven Johns. There was no competition and so I gradually started selling my works to various shops and it lasted for a long time. I stopped doing that only 4 or 5 years ago. But I had sold my items to 80 shops all over the world.
Luck is a way of utilizing accidents. In Polish it doesn’t sound good but in English it definitely does. All, that is happening, one can use in a negative or a positive way. It means that if a hat does not turn out the way I wanted… We once had a wonderful hat that was the fruit of an error. We tried to dye suede and it didn’t catch the colour right. Somebody, who’d done it, threw it into the litter bin without even showing it to me. I came and this litter bin was large. “What is it? How did you get it?”. „Don’t make fun of us. This is a failed attempt”. That was pure genius. Afterwards, we sold thousands of those hats. Later we had a problem recreating the process.
During my first fashion trade show my friends presented a collection of sheepskin coats and jackets. They gave me some space above their clothes to put the hats. That was my first debut. I was the one packing everything into bags. And in the morning I couldn’t find any of those bags. And that was my entire hat collection. It turned out that somebody had thrown them away. They came to clean, they saw black bags and they threw them away. That was in Olympia. When I went to ask them they said it’s impossible, they threw everything out. But there were containers with litter. During fair there is no waste from the kitchen. I looked for 4 hours inside the containers to find my hats. I say to myself: “It’s a brilliant start of a career”. But I found them. This is how I can sum up my career. I found them and this was the beginning. From trash to Chelsea.
Here, in Poland I mean, a lot has changed. Here you are innocent until proven guilty. Back then in Poland it was the other way around. In Poland people had to fight for everything. Everything. In Poland people did not believe others, there was this attitude, everyone was a suspect. It’s different here. English are very open people. At least they were when I came here. By open I mean that they were able to accept diversity. In Poland people are more rigid. Here you can walk the streets naked, wearing only a hat, and nobody will look back at you. You are allowed to be different here.
