the wellington college year book 2010/2011
the wellington college year book 2010/2011
117
116
t h e l i t t l e h at t e ry
dominik marszalek [s 1991–1996]
I
left Wellington as a rugby
player. Following the advice
of those with my best
interests at heart I then
went to ucl to become
an economist. That didn’t quite work out as
expected and I spent my twenties as a happily
overpaid private chef.
A year and a half ago I came over to Cape
Town for a three month getaway and now
I find myself half of The Little Hattery, a
plucky little fashion brand heading for this
year’s Jo’burg Fashion Week. Granted, it’s
not Paris or New York, but by all accounts
we’ve swum upstream pretty quickly. We’ve
got a South African It girl as our brand
Ambassador, we work out of a seaside studio
with uninterrupted views of the ocean.
Princesses, both Zulu and Jewish come to
us to get their heads covered, and for the
guys, well, we make pieces for various South
African rockers you’ll never have heard of.
Coldplay are coming over to South Africa
next year and we’ll be backstage, onstage and
potentially upstaging them with a headpiece
for Gwyneth Paltrow and that’s only a few
months after starting this hat stuff ! It’ll be
interesting to see where we’re at in another
couple of years, apart from thumping some
old foes in some ow rugby …
As much as I’d like to take all the credit
for this distinctly enjoyable and increasingly
lengthy moment in the sun, I have to give
some of it to old Wellie. To those still lucky
enough to be there I would give one piece
of advice; of course you can let Wellington
slide right by but I’d urge you not to. I would
pause a while and look around, sniff the air
triumphantly and be darned grateful. There’s
a whole heap of smart thinking around you
and that is definitely to be taken advantage
of, blatantly and thoroughly.
I remember my Economics teacher telling
me how uncertain the future was. That may
sound facile, but I have held it in my mind
and combined it with the smart-thinking
absorbed at school. If you can be smart and
smile knowingly at change and adversity by
the time the other unfortunate chaps have
gotten over their sulks and hissy fits you’ll
be miles ahead. Thinking about it now,
that’s pretty much the mentality within The
Little Hattery and we work like fiends doing
exactly what we want and blowing people
away. Never forgetting that we can say at
anytime ‘I’m taking a long weekend, as of
this Tuesday’. (Now don’t go buying one of
our hats for every day of the week will you,
although if mum wants one for Ascot then
who are we to stop her …)