By Isabel Calabria
Running a stall at Westway Market
just off of Portobello road in Notting Hill, Julia Chettati sells handcrafted,
bespoke head accessories.
Standing amongst her eclectic and colourful mix of varying homemade jewellery, hats, scarves and even shoes; Julia boasts an array of accessories. Specialising in headpieces, Chettati tells us from where she sources her stock. “I make it all myself, most are made from really old pieces from the 20s that I recreate with different materials.” She continues to tell us, “Others I make from scratch, I find materials and make accessories that I feel like making and my work definitely reflects my mood through the use of colour.” Whilst standing amongst a rainbow of different hanging pieces Julia adds, “colour is possibly the biggest expression of mood that there is.”
Julia designed the headpieces for the Riverside Studio Production of The Great Gatsby in 2013 after the producers approached her on the count of her pieces looking authentic, but this wasn’t the first time that Julia had been noticed by important people. Chettati tells us “I was a Muse for Chanel for a while years ago, people from the design teams used to come to Portobello road a lot, they bought my pieces and they copied them for their collections. I came to Portobello road about 15 years ago. I started selling just hats, and then eventually accessories too.”
