Flower Power
My Aunt Megan inspires me endlessly with her creativity, innovation and style. She is unapologetically true to herself. Her company, Wilhelm NYC, creates beautiful flower headdresses that have been featured in Italian Vogue, New York Magazine, and Allure. You can take a peek at her site here and her Instagram here!
How did Wilhelm NYC come to be?
It all started with a Day of the Dead party... I went to the flower district in NYC which is extraordinary and is filled with hundreds of incredible real and fake flowers. I bought a bunch of Goodie headbands and silk flowers and started playing around with them. When I had a finished piece, I sent it to a friend. She was like "oh my gosh, can you make a couple more for the girls at the party?" and I was like "of course, this is really fun"! I brought them to the party and all of the girls wore them. My friends said "Megan, you really should do these”. So.....I went back to the flower district and started picking flowers I was attracted to and used "I love the color of this and the texture of that" as my guide. I went home and started playing and I couldn't stop. Later, one of my girlfriends said, “I want you to meet this girl” who happened to be Cleo Wade (@cleowade) . She came to my studio and flipped out over the pieces. She brought two of her friends over and said “we’re going to Fashion Week in Paris next week. Can we borrow these?” I was like “of course you can”. They posted lots of photos of them wearing the headdresses and I would repost them on my Instagram. That’s how people first started to see them and asking where they could buy them. The majority of my first sales were from Instagram. I was already developing a website my feather scarves (another passion) and I realized I could layer the headdresses with the scarves. I was getting all of these orders but I didn't have a website up. It was a beautiful thing and it gave me a crash course on how to get the company started. Then we had a goddess dinner for the launch which was a thank you for all of the girls who had been wearing them and helping me launch. I had the dinner professionally photographed by an agency that posts the pictures and if companies were interested they would write a story. A Florida magazine ended up running the whole story.
Where can I buy one?
I’ve never approached stores because I’ve always thought that this was a passion project more than a business. The majority of my work is custom so people contact me directly, so call me!
What is the coolest place your pieces have been featured?
There have been a few- the coolest was probably the cover of Italian Vogue. There was also the time when I was at the train station with my friend Eve and she showed me a New York Magazine featuring a cartoon of Oprah, Gloria Steinem and Frida Kahlo having dinner and I was like "Frida is wearing my headdress”! Another time my friend said “Megan, there is a full page spread of your headdresses in Allure with Cleo, Margot, and Kate wearing them at some outdoor special event". One of my favorite people who has worn one of my pieces is Tali Lennox (Annie Lennox's daughter). She wore it to her opening with an Hermes suit. She looked extraordinary. She contacted me to make another piece to wear for an awards show. She wore a Burberry dress and a headdress with two black pom poms and gold leaves. She told me later that Burberry contacted her saying that they loved how she styled her outfit.
Let’s talk about how wearing a headdress makes you feel.....
The girls that have worn them have said it makes them feel like goddesses. We had an exhibit in New Orleans and my pieces were featured in this one room. The girls kept asking “can we put them on” and I said “of course”, yes try them all on! All of a sudden you could see them stand a little taller and they seemed to step into this persona. It appeared as though they felt like princesses and they had stepped into their queendom.
They remind me of the painter Frida Kahlo. Was she an inspiration?
Initially I didn't look to her for the inspiration but as you can see from my work, she has been influential. She has always been someone I have admired. I look at her and think "wow, she marches to the beat of her own drum!"
The headdresses are a real statement. Any advice on how to get comfortable wearing one?
It's as simple as going outside, finding some flowers and sticking them in your hair. I am even intimidated to wear them sometimes because it really is a statement. Sometimes I just stick a big flower in my topknot. On the flip side, I have girlfriends that will wear three at a time and can’t get enough. They’re like "hand me that one and that one and that one!"
