moon_custafer | Bazaar of the Bizarre, Spring 2012

I did not sell a single hat in eight hours of manning a table while techno (?) blared in the background. Mind you, the woman next to me who's a veteran of these shows and makes beautiful hair ornaments only sold, like, two of them, so maybe it was just a slow day. I'm trying to draw lessons from it for next time:

1. Use a plainer fabric for my table cloth - no one actually said so, but I suspect a lot of my wares were hard to see against the pattern.

2. Brighter colours - Half the people there had hair dyed black or dark red - the hats and hair ornaments wouldn't have stood out if they'd tried them on.

3. Different fastening mechanisms - I sewed those stretchy circular hair combs to my hats, because I've found them to be the most comfortable and secure way of holding them on my head; but the learning curve was too steep for my potential customers. U-shaped hairbands are ugly and uncomfortable, but at least people know how to put them on.

4. Maybe I should avoid calling them "hats." At least three people said "oh, they're lovely, but I'm just not a hat person." Possible if I stick to really small fascinators and call them "decorated headbands," people won't be scared off.