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What happens when you cross a creative custom hatmaker with almost 100 YOU magazines? Well, you get a delicate, one-of-a-kind evening gown – with a matching headpiece, of course.
Lyndon Miller Pegs, a hatmaker from Johannesburg, needed a creative idea for a photoshoot campaign for his marketing agency, Verb Media.
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The 35-year-old put on his thinking cap and came up with a concept that would acknowledge the business' followers and clients as they ushered in 2021 – New Year. New YOU.
Lyndon, who is an avid YOU magazine reader, had just the right material to bring his unique dress to life.
Along with his team, Kabelo Khumatake and Zaza Williams, he set out to make a dress from YOU magazines, complete with matching headgear.
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The trio tore the covers and pages from almost 100 YOU magazines, some dating as far back as 2015.
“Once I came up with the concept, every time I saw someone that had an old magazine in their house I'd ask if I could please take their YOU magazine," he says.
The entire outfit took hours to make.
Lyndon made the headwear in about four hours while Zaza and Kabelo jumped on board to create the dress, which took almost six hours to finish.
The team used a corset and a hoop skirt structure as the base of the dress, pinning loose YOU magazine pages onto it.
Although the paper dress and headpiece only lasted a few months, the clever design lives on in Lyndon's social media pages, where it continues to attract attention.
Lyndon got his start in events and marketing, but four years ago he became a professional hatmaker, otherwise known as a milliner.
He opened his own business, putting a spin on his newfound profession and his surname and so his headwear brand, Millerner, was born.
“The brand is focused on occasional and artistic styled headwear. We make hats for events, weddings, the horse races and themed events and sometimes we even make hats for birthday parties," he says.
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His hats have travelled far and wide. Some were featured in Jessica Jane Molebatsi's Noluthando Collection at Paris Fashion Week earlier this year and Minnie Dlamini was also seen wearing one when she strutted the streets of Paris for the fashion show.
He’s also made a Time magazine dress for Verb Media’s We had the TIME of our lives in 2019 campaign, a HELLO magazine dress for their HELLO 2020 campaign and a dress made from wrapping paper for their Merry Christmas campaign.
“A big thing about my brand is sustainability and recycling and when I make my hats, I try to use free bits of material. Every bit of a feather or a sequence or whatever it may be, I try to make it go as far as possible, without having to throw it away.”
Although he's done work for celebrities and nobility both locally and abroad, the YOU magazine outfit is one of his favourite contemporary creations.
“Thank goodness we had YOU magazines that could help us put it together," he proudly says.
