How it all Began

Waltraud Reiner all her life used metaphors around mental wellbeing. She found healing herself in fabrics, textile, art and making. So she started creating projects which would involve the wider community. She provided space for artistic expression and support people in their own healing. WHich over time lead her to do a Masters in Gestalt Psychotherapy. and start her own private practice besides keeping up her hatmaking.

She conceived the idea of Hats for Happiness during her years as a milliner, as well as travelling widely to teach hat making.
During the 1990s a period of adversity struck Waltraud and her family: her husband had an accident which left him with paraplegia, her sister-in-law was fatally struck by a car when trying to rescue a turtle from the road, and Waltraud herself had to learn to overcome her own depression and eating disorder.
Waltraud translated all this pain into making and using metaphors around hats. After her husband’s accident he started talking about suicide, at which time her own depression was at its highest, she found solace and respite in art. That time led her to drop the need for her peers’ approval or for judgement about the right way to teach stitching skills. Waltraud’s right way to make was to express the heart and she coined the saying ‘Hat and art is in the HeArT’.
Hats for happiness was born.

About one in four people worldwide suffer some kind of mental illness during their lifetime. Many suffer in silence, lacking the words or means to express their pain or make sense of it. Through active creativity, and reaching out to make connections with others, Waltraud found she could break through layers of silence to find new ways where none was initially apparent. People may not know what to do but they do NOT have to do it ALONE.

Hats for Happiness to date instigated Hatwalk and the Little Hat project.

We approach well-being through the ideas of Creating, Talking, Listening and Walking.