INTERACTIVE:

August 23, 1999
Web posted at: 1:19 p.m. EDT (1719 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Milliner Philip Treacy pushes fantasy to far reaches for a fall/winter hat collection that's best described as "otherworldly." The Irish designer makes hats in funky, exotic shapes with a variety of unusual materials.

His creations have "circles, spirals, explosions, very natural and unnatural lines." Treacy also uses materials in this collection that, he says, have never been used for hats before.

"Plastics, nylon-based materials, polarized metals -- I mean the majority of them are synthetic materials," he says. "But they lend themselves to hat making, aerodynamic shapes, transparency and weightlessness."

Treacy had the opportunity to design his own prints with a felt maker in the Czech Republic. "I thought it was important to use contemporary looking prints: spots, birds, animal prints."

So, just who's forking over the cash to buy such undeniably outrageous styles?

"It's not necessarily the person on the street who's going to wear a very exotic couture hat," Treacy says, "but a pop star, movie star -- whoever wants to look their best."

CNN Style Correspondent Elsa Klensch contributed to this report.