Hats for Emmerdale 'funeral' a dream for milliners

Fans of top soap Emmerdale will remember the Christmas Day blockbuster storyline.

It featured a dream sequence when many of the soap’s top stars including Steve Halliwell (Zak Dingle), Elizabeth Estensen (Diane Sugden), Eden Taylor-Draper (Belle Dingle) and Jane Cox (Lisa Dingle) were filmed at the “funeral” of Aaron Livesey.

Marie - whose creations have travelled worldwide under her label Marie Flanagan Couture - was commissioned to make five ladies hats for the special. Her work has been seen at such prestigious events as Ascot and the Royal garden parties and weddings.

Molly, who created a fashion stir last year when OK! and Hello magazines and national newspapers featured Irish TV presenter and model Laura Whitmore wearing one of her hats at Ascot Ladies Day, got the job of making a similar number of hats for the male stars.

“We had three weeks to complete the hats in time for rehearsals and the story was so top secret even we didn’t know in what context the hats would be worn.

“The fact that they were all black did give us a clue! We were thrilled to see our three weeks of working all hours come to fruition in spite of feeling we were working in the dark on such a top secret story line,” said Molly, who has recently launched a range of hats for men called King Pin. Peaky Blinders star Tom Hardy is already the proud owner of one.

lMolly whose label is Good Golly Miss Molly Bespoke Hats will shortly run a number of hat making classes.

For details of when and where go to her website goodgollymissmolly.co.uk