“I like the idea that hats continue to tell stories years later,” says artisan milliner Dana Estelle, founder of Brooklyn Millinery Company (BKMC). “It’s fun to see people who bought a hat from me 15 years ago come in now with different feathers in the brim or things they’ve picked up in their travels.”
For Estelle, hats are more than just accessories—they are heirlooms, statements of identity, and vehicles for joy. Her company, which she recently relocated from its eponymous Brooklyn to her hometown of Rhinebeck, hatmaking is a meditative craft rooted in tradition, personal history, and a quiet rebellion against fast fashion.
“For me, fashion has always been about looking different than everyone else—even when I was younger,” Estelle says. Raised in Staatsburg, just outside Rhinebeck, she began her fashion journey buying patterns and fabric with her mom at Joann, thrifting secondhand clothing at Goodwills and church sales, taking apart garments and sewing them back together. “Clothing has always been a way to express my identity,” she says, “and also a vehicle to make people smile or shock them—in a good way.”
That impulse led her to a year at Parsons and eventually FIT to study the disappearing art of millinery. “I really wanted to dig my hands into a craft that I could master,” Estelle says. “It could’ve been jewelry or shoes, but I picked hats because not a lot of people were doing it anymore,” she explains. The old-world allure of hats and the tie to vintage fashion, reminiscent of her grandparents’ era, drew her in.
Estelle launched Brooklyn Millinery Company in 2014 while living in the city and moved operations upstate in 2021. The transition felt serendipitous: “I was living five minutes from town, drove by and saw the space was available,” she says. “It was a very impulsive move. But I thought, ‘Why not try to do a hat shop in Rhinebeck?’”
Estelle’s work now lives at the intersection of artistry, tradition, and slow fashion principles. “Sustainability has always been at my core—just having less items of better quality, knowing how to appreciate them, and creating things that last generationally,” she says. “A big thorn in my side is fast fashion.” BKMC hats—majority hand-stitched, never touching a sewing machine—are objects built to last, ideally, even to be passed down. “Hats can always be refurbished back to their original starting point,” Estelle says. “In that way, they are so sustainable—like a shoe that you can get resoled over and over. These are objects that last forever.”
Estelle does not use wool felt, instead working with rabbit and beaver fur felt sourced from a furrier in Tennessee—materials that have long been favored in classic millinery for their durability and natural water resistance. “Beaver is what cowboy hats have been made out of for centuries,” she says She also uses handwoven straw from Ecuador, and even locally sourced straw for some summer sunhat models.
A standard cowboy hat takes about three days to make, but Estelle’s more elaborate pieces—some hand-embroidered or ornamented with Swarovski crystals and pearls—can take up to 50 hours apiece. “I love sitting and doing a repetitive motion over and over and over. It’s a meditative practice. I have low blood pressure—that’s probably why,” she says with a laugh. “Because I hate fast fashion so much, I feel like sometimes I go even slower just to spite it.”
The multistep process starts with molding a fur felt “hood” over a wooden block, with blocks for different hat shapes and head sizes. After drying, the hat gets sanded and shaped. If it’s more structural, wire might get added or the brim bound. Then the sweat band is sewn in, the trim is added, and any ornamentation.
While she offers pre-made hats, Estelle estimates that 70 percent of her business is custom orders. Like her own craft, she’s developed a slow, stepped approach to custom designing. “It’s a lot for people to conceptualize a whole custom hat for themselves,” she says. So she takes them through the process in phases: fitting, then shape and color selection. Once the base of the hat is molded, customers can return to try on the hat, and from there tweak the shape and pick out trim. Often, the hats carry deeply personal elements—heirloom hat pins, a vintage silk tie from a family member, feathers found on a family trip. The whole custom construction process can take up to six weeks.
Whether bespoke customers or foot-traffic shoppers, Estelle encourages people new to hats to take their time exploring, then to commit and not to be afraid to stand out. “You get looks,” she says. “That feeling of being insecure lasts momentarily—fake it till you make it. Ride over that fear, and pretty soon you’ll feel good in it. Then you’ll feel naked without it”
The Hudson Valley setting—rich in vintage stores peddling throwback fashion and old-school hat pins plus acres of parks and preserves with plenty of beautiful feathers to collect—influences both Estelle’s color palette and her ornamentation. “This area has so much history,” she says. She even leads indigo dye workshops at her studio or opens the door on Friday nights for people to use the in-house dye vat for their own projects. “People bring items to dip dye,” she says. “I really love that, because it teaches people about dyeing and extending the life of a garment—and also about how horrible commercial dyes are for the environment.”
For Estelle, hats can be transformative. “A lot of people want to wear a hat to pinpoint their identity or sense of style—that really comes from within,” she says. “Hats get a bad rap because not represented well in the commercial space. If you’re going to invest in a hat, getting one handmade for you is the way to go. The proportions are everything, and ultimately everyone’s hat shape and size is unique.
In the past year, Estelle’s work has garnered nationwide attention and reached new audiences. One of her hats appeared in the recent Met Gala issue of Vogue in a photoshoot with director Spike Lee wearing the Lenny hat. “It was the first issue where it was predominantly Black and brown men and women, tastemakers, highlighting their culture,” she says. “It was a huge honor.”
But even with renewed acclaim, Estelle remains devoted to the slow, patient rhythm of her work. “People really gain a sense of confidence or sense of self when they leave,” she says. “That’s the real draw. Once you become a hat person, you’ll never want to take it off.”
