After university, Martyna Maliszewska Mank turned her back on German and Art History and devoted her time and energy to millinery. She is now living her childhood dream, creating fashion headpieces for women.
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00:00Martyna Maliszewska-Mank, I am a young woman with more than 10 years of experience.
00:07Each of Martyna's hats is a little work of art.
00:10Handmade flowers, her own design and intricate shapes.
00:14I encourage women to wear wristbands, turbans, fascinators,
00:19something that will add colour to our life,
00:22something that is missing on our Polish streets.
00:26Martyna Maliszewska-Mank studied German language
00:29and art history, but she later chose to follow her passion
00:33and create headpieces instead.
00:35Her creations are similar to those that feature
00:38on the catwalks of London, Paris and New York.
00:41She makes them in her workshop in Radzymin,
00:44a small town with a population of about 15,000,
00:47located 30 kilometres north of Warsaw.
00:50My love for hats, for headscarves,
00:53was probably since I was a child,
00:55because I always liked wearing headscarves.
00:58I also liked wearing hats, berets, hats.
01:02A hat was my attribute, which replaced a teddy bear.
01:08I used to sleep with a small, fluffy hat.
01:11Later, I became interested in this in the context of the royal family.
01:15I thought it would be beautiful if women in Poland wore headscarves.
01:24Martyna creates unique headpieces
01:26using all kinds of decorative elements, including feathers.
01:35These are swallows.
01:37This is an ostrich.
01:39Ostriches, roosters, ducks, swallows, drones.
01:44Martyna taught herself everything she knows.
01:47She says that many experienced milliners in Poland
01:50don't really want to share their knowledge.
01:52I started looking for a young girl in Poland
01:55who I could go to and learn how to make feathers.
02:00And it turns out that it's not that easy.
02:04In Poland, we have a lot of young girls
02:07who can share their knowledge,
02:09who can teach younger generations.
02:12But they don't really want to.
02:15So I learned from young girls in Ireland,
02:18I learned from young girls from Australia.
02:20So I acquired world-class techniques.
02:23Polish young girls were young girls
02:25who were appreciated all over Europe.
02:27In the interwar period, there were a lot of young girls
02:30who created headscarves in Warsaw, over the Vistula River,
02:33who were trained by French young girls.
02:36These were hats known all over Europe.
02:39During the communist era, millinery in Poland
02:42became associated with rather boring berets and hats.
02:46Now, however, unique headpieces are back in fashion.
03:17These are headscarves, hats.
03:20It turned out that a man wanted to sell
03:23over 30 heads and horns.
03:26He bought a house in which a young girl
03:29probably once lived.
03:31He entered the attic, saw these headscarves
03:34and didn't even know what he was selling.
03:37I would like to pass this on.
03:39I would like to teach.
03:41The only problem I see is that today's youth
03:44can't sew, can't hold a needle with a thread in their hand.
03:47Because no one shows them that
03:50this young generation doesn't feel this need.
03:55I often meet people who say,
03:57no, no, no, a hat or a headscarf is not for me.
04:00And then the lady starts trying on
04:02and enters my world and sees that this world
04:05can be her world.
04:07Women really need these hats,
04:09they just have to discover this need.
04:12For the moment, Martina advertises her work online.
04:15But soon, she will make another one of her dreams come true
04:18when she opens her first atelier in Warsaw.