Photo: @jameschristiemedia
Kelly Maskell of Kamellyon Design blends a lifelong love of making with eclectic inspiration. Recently, her design “Graffiti and Grace” won the 2025 Millinery Australia Student Award and earned praise from leading milliners.
What sparked your interest in millinery?
My mum taught me to sew when I was young, it was a necessity if you wanted new clothes living in a remote mining town in WA. That’s where my love for making began, first clothing, then exploring every creative project I could over the years. I studied textiles and fashion design at school and made many formal & wedding gowns over the years. I have owned an interior decorating store and worked for a papercraft magazine in between working in IT, finance and administration in both Australia and New Zealand but creative pursuits always ran alongside these through the years.
I remember decorating a huge black hat covered in cherry blossom to match a dress I’d sewn to attend a race day, it attracted a lot of compliments and sparked a real interest in millinery. I adored that hat so much it became the inspiration for my logo. The next race meet, my sister won lady of the day in a hat I made. Fast forward a few years and I found myself frustrated that hat supplies were scarce, I could no longer just walk into a city fabric shop to buy nice hat bases and trims. Then I discovered a millinery supply shop for the first time, I was instantly hooked! It felt like discovering a whole new creative world I had missed out on. I was on a mission, searching for techniques and training, and Hat Academy with accessible online millinery classes and resources has been my go-to for expanding my knowledge.
How would you describe your designs?
My style is quite eclectic. I’m always learning and refining millinery techniques, so my collection often blends new techniques into finished designs. I think of millinery as wearable art, and I enjoy pulling in fabrics or craft skills from other parts of my creative life. Interestingly, my most popular pieces are usually the ones that come from simply playing around, letting a design evolve in its own way over time.
My label, Kamellyon Design, began as a high school project to design a fashion label. I thought I was pretty clever incorporating my name into “chameleon” indicating the ability to be adaptable to different situations and surroundings, and it’s still seems to fit today, like a chameleon, I love designing pieces that can adapt to suit different environments.
What inspires you?
I have an innate desire to create, I never seem to run out of ideas and love the hit of dopamine when they come to fruition. I draw inspiration from colour, texture and vintage and retro styles, I love rock and roll dancing and have a passion for 40’s and 50’s fashion. Inspiration though is just the starting point because after I start a piece, it tends to grow organically, so when I do actually sketch ideas before starting, it rarely ends up looking anything like what I first imagined. I have clients that provide inspiration too, they are wonderful because they will show me their ideas and trust that I will create a unique look for them.
What is your favourite material to work with?
Right now, I’m loving parisisal. Thanks to the Millinery Australia Student Award prizes, I’ve been able to source a good stock of these premium materials, experimenting with dye and creating different shapes and styles with my own carved blocks has been so enjoyable.
What millinery tool in your studio could you never live without?
It sounds like a cliché, but my hands are my most important tools. Take everything else away, I can still create with them. If I had to pick a second, it would be my sewing machine. I won it with a prize voucher after winning a regional fashion competition when I was 15, it’s been in regular use for over 40 years and now I torture it with millinery straw.
How you go from an idea to a finished hat?
It really depends on the piece. For competition entries, like the Street Award, the idea of a baker’s boy cap as streetwear seemed natural but the decorative design took a while. The theme, views from Melbourne streets, was sparked by a discussion about old Melways maps and my memories of riding trams around the city when I moved here as a 17-year-old. Unfortunately, I always hugely underestimate the time that pieces will take, something like this was over 38 hrs on the sewing machine and many more of hand embroidery (after my machine broke) and it’s finished when you run out of time.
When creating other millinery pieces, I usually have several in progress at once, when I get stuck, I move onto another piece, waiting for that spark of inspiration to hit and then circle around until they have come to life.
Congrats on winning the 2025 Millinery Australia Student Award!
The winning hat 'Graffitti and Grace' received a lot of attention and the perfect score was certainly a confidence booster too! The award win was so encouraging and enabled me to connect with some amazing millinery mentors who have provided guidance, advice and increased confidence in the quality of my work. I'm delighted to say that I was encouraged to step up production and now my spring range is available in store at 'The Essential Hat' in Malvern, Vic. 
Photo: @richshawphoto @millineryaustralia Model: @laceyshattock_ HMUA: @pstasinosmakeup
What has been a challenge you have faced in hat making?
Time is always the challenge. My day job as Centre Manager at a research centre (working with an amazing team of researchers improving the lives of people with aphasia after stroke) keeps me busy, so most of my millinery is created in the evenings and on weekends. I’m very lucky to have a supportive partner, Paul, who takes on most of the household tasks so I have time to create. The trickiest part for me is the digital side — photography, maintaining websites, uploading photos to social media. Since I do a lot of that in my day job, I’d rather be hands-on with hats than on a computer, but you’ll often find me close to midnight on my phone creating posts to promote my work.
What are your other passions?
We moved to the Macedon Ranges last year, and I’ve been enjoying working in the garden and vegetable patch again. I enjoy local markets and wineries, and we adopted Plum, a Great Dane cross who had spent the last five years in a shelter. She is such a lovely dog and watching her relax into her new home has been such a joy.
I also love furniture renovation/upcycling and woodturning, skills my dad taught me as a teenager. I’ve made many of my own hat blocks and stands. Paul found me a lathe on Marketplace, so woodturning is about to become a bigger part of my creative life over summer. 
Famous words to live by…
“How do you know if you don’t give it a go?” Too many people are convinced they don’t have abilities without even trying something. Creativity, for me, is about stepping in and seeing where it takes you, sure you might fail, but you also might learn something new.
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