Garden & Gun Article: Meet the Mardi Gras Hatmaker
Maria Etkind
A New Orleans milliner followed her dream after a mentor said,
“Don’t let the thinking get in the way of the doing”
By MARY CATHERINE MCANNALLY SCOTT
In the hazy late-night hours, Maria Etkind talks to her hats.
But there’s no “mad hatter” here. Rather, Etkind, a milliner based in New Orleans, knows herself well enough to wait until morning to make a final call about a problematic hat. “We’ll see about you tomorrow,” she’ll say. As she sleeps, the harsh judgment often disappears. She says: “Almost always, in the morning, it’s beautiful again.