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.
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