vegetable soup, with vegetables from a friend sarah...

am making a fresh vegetable soup with extra vegetables from my friend sarah's csa... will give the recipe in the next post... and tell you how it turned out... i am making it in my crock pot...

intoduction to the hatmaker... that cooks...

my name is timothy kokott and i am a fashion designer who lives in the bronx, a borough of nyc, and i made my mark in hatmaking over 20 years ago starting with a job as head designer at northern cap manufacturing in minneapolis, minnesota. during my five and a half years there i was an instrumental person that helped bring the company to the level of being able to take on polo/ralph lauren men's to design and produce their better and more complex hats. upon working with their men's headwear design team the first time they visited minneapolis i was invited to come to work with them in nyc. thus started the process of moving to nyc. i left northrern cap in july and came to nyc on vacation to be referred onto david cohen, who was signing the sole licensing agreement with polo women's headwear at that time. i started to freelance with him at that time, extending my return ticket to minneapolis as long as possible. he hired me fulltime and asked me to move to nyc. during my extended "vacation" in nyc i took on the job of making the men's vest collection, which was new to his product offering, current and modern, then i moved onto the men's hats, all this product being for the upcoming designer collective at the plaza hotel, and my last few days were spent redecorating the hotel room to compliment the collection. then i flew back to minneapolis to start the process of moving to nyc. the process of moving ended at thanksgiving and i was fired by david cohen over the phone while in minneapolis finishing the move. i had planned to move back to minneapolis, but the friend i was staying with in nyc talked me into staying and set a goal of so many of my own hats a day. i think the goal was three. because nyc can be such a rich source of inspiration, resources, and supplies, part of the plan was to work alot with found fabrics and garments. on a referral from a david cohen eployee who proceeded me i ended up with a project making the costume for a "dorothy" of the wizard of oz for an aerobics fund raoser for the city of hope hospital. the client just happened to be from minneapolis originally, and when he was coming for fittings he was also seeing my stock of fresh hats. he had many dkny and donna karan employees in his aerobic classes and as they were asking about the progress of his costume, he was telling them of my fabulous hats. fashion week was fast approaching, and john giswold, the client, helped to connect me with the accessory people at dkny. i met with them with about 40 samples, left 18 overnight for donna karan to see, and upon returning the next day, they had me sit down for donna's response. she claimed that i was the best thing since elsa schaparelli! quite a compliment, which led to the writing of the quickest order on record of 30 hats for the dkny show that would open fashion week 10 days later. i made all but 9 of those hats and actually delivered 31 as their fit model who was in the show demanded an extra hat for herself. the hats were picked up from me in the east village by limo. i met donna backstage at the show as i was there to make sure the hats were worn right. shalom harlow and kate moss were two of the super models used in the show. upon meeting donna she lifted my hat brim to see my eyes. david cohen sat in the audience of that show to see my hats open and close the show, appearing on the runway 41 times, the runway that helped to build his business. he was approached to produce my hats but could not as he was entering bankruptcy. i was not to produce them as they did not want to lose me in production, they needed me to keep designing hats for them. i met donna karan again in her office that night with kevin aucon as they were dicussing makeup for the donna karan show that would close fashion week and i was there to discuss hat ideas for that show. donna karan, who had been up around the clock for several days, spent most of her time laying on the floor as the light was best there for talking makeup ideas and it was also most comfortable. hats were developed for the donna show but were not used on the runway. i continued as a freelancer with dkny/donna karan for 4 years. during that time the company "we b hats" by tim kokott was established and financed by joel rothstein of titan trading, a button and trimmings supplier that i had met thru polo/ralph lauren, to produce the hats i was designing not only for dkny/donna karan, but also polo/ralph lauren, eileen fisher, and othe rsmaller design houses. there is more to this story, but i will not bore you so i can get to the blog. i have lived in a homeless shelter twice while living in nyc, i have dressed tina turner, britney spears, mary j blige, janet jackson, pink, and lil kim. and my hats are owned by donna karan, patti labelle, and many others. i sell my hats at the starting line in chelsea, nyc, jill anderson, east village, nyc, soho hat shop, soho, nyc, and thru me at http://www.timothykokott.com/. i am also known for my hand beading, and designed a wedding dress for a wedding in vatican city in fall of 2003, while working with garo sparo. i also make corsets along with doing a full range of alterations having had worked for adriono goldschmied at their soho location, for 3 and a half years, working on a gold plated sewing machine in the front window. i am currently the tailor at brooklyn denim co in williamsburg, brooklyn, ny and work with private clients.