ITS: What’s the best part?
JS: The best part for me is being challenged to create something new for the screen within the limits of the story or production. I love challenges, as well as striving for excellence, and expanding my range of techniques and skills. Helping to bring screen characters to
life using couture millinery techniques is deeply satisfying. Of course, its a thrill to see my work in the movies, especially since I’m quite the film fanatic!
ITS: First time you saw your work on the big screen? How did you react?
JS: Of course, it’s amazing! Sometimes you work at a movie and then it takes two years before it comes out, and its a great feeling after all the waiting. But I am always a little self-critical because I am so much of a perfectionist. I am constantly looking at how to improve and learn for the next time.
ITS: The project you're most fond of?
JS: I’m really blessed to have worked on, and be currently working on, wonderful projects, from period dramas to science fiction fantasies that demand iconic, high-end sensibility. Each one is a different challenge in its own right, so it's always more about the making of the piece for me. So which project am I most fond of, the next one!
ITS: Fun fact. How many hats did you develop for the movie industry up to now?
JS: I’ve lost count! Sometimes for one movie I will make 40 designs and then I work with the costume designer to choose which ones to develop, so it can easily go into quite a few hundred hats, without any problem at all. For instance, I did the hats for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Episode VIII; I made roughly 150 hats which required me to work at Pinewood Studios for quite a few months.