Meet The Milliner Of The Week

Even if “Yestadt Millinery” doesn’t ring any bells, Molly Yestadt’s clients will—among them, she counts Thom Browne and Vena Cava, both of whom commissioned the designer to create hats for their Fall 2010 collections. (For Browne, raccoon-tailed pillbox bellhop’s hats [left]; for Vena Cava, Santa Fe-style wide-brimmed ones [right].) Launched in 2008, Yestadt Millinery got an early boost from Marc by Marc Jacobs (which put her caps on its guys for Fall 2009), and picked up momentum when Vena Cava tapped her for Spring 2010. “Last season was kind of our coming-out party,” Yestadt says. That was before the label could count everyone from Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester and Rihanna to Courtney Love as fans.

Today Yestadt Millinery’s own line is stocked at Anthropologie and Henri Bendel. “We’re taking a younger and fresher look at hats, freshening up that tradition and craft,” Yestadt continues. The line’s Fall collection, also shown this week, is decidedly American pioneer chic. “I started with the idea of that spirit, of something very radical and useful. It was about starting completely new and starting from nothing.” That’s a story to which any young label can relate.