Mireille Racine

Mireille Racine is a textile artist and milliner whose practice combines craft and fine art. Based in the Sainte-Foy area of Quebec City, she creates and transforms hats and millinery instruments into sculptures or makes them the protagonists of a performance.

Mireille Racine’s approach draws out the historic, sociological and personal qualities of hats and the millinery trade.

Her creations are a blend of traditional materials (wool, straw, velvet, silk) and unusual elements (rubber, plastic, paper, hair).

Mireille Racine’s work has been exhibited at numerous museums and art galleries in Canada and outside the country, notably at the Musée Marsil in Montreal and the Hat Museum in Chazelles-sur-Lyon in France, where she was awarded first prize in the museum’s first international competition in 1995. Her hats are often worn on stage, for example, in productions by Robert Lepage, Théâtre La Bordée and Cirque du Soleil.

Les échassiers, 2002 © Carl Valiquet. Photo courtesy of Mireille Racine

Mireille Racine studied art history, ethnology and visual arts at Université Laval in addition to attending the École de mode Châtelaine fashion school in Quebec City. In 1986 and 1987, she received two training grants from the Quebec and French governments so she could study with Paris milliners.

In the early 1980s, her hats were initially sold exclusively at her atelier. They were later available in some Montreal stores, including Chapofolie from 1989 to 1998 and the Galerie des métiers d’art from 1997 to 2002, well as at the Quebec City Salon des artisans. Mireille Racine then returned to selling her creations by appointment at her studio, abandoning the ready-to-wear market to focus on special orders and the artistic aspect of her work.

In addition to making her art, Mireille Racine has taught hat making for many years. She was a teacher at the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles from 1993 to 2010 and at Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures from 2006 to 2014. She has taught at the Maison des métiers d’art de Québec since 2005.