Business is booming for a Pennsylvania woman, as her fun side hustle quickly turned into a lucrative business after one of Beyoncé‘s stylists contacted her last June to create a sparkly accessory for Queen Bey herself.
Abby Misbin, 24, has been selling disco-ball cowboy hats on Etsy since 2021.
At first, Misbin was only getting a few orders here and there. She said she would work on them in her parent’s unfinished basement in Ambler, Pennsylvania, which she calls the “Hat Bunker.”
“Hi, Abby, need to have for Beyoncé needed by June 9. Where are you located?” the stylist’s message read, according to BBC News.
“Honestly, it read like a scam message,” Misbin told the outlet. “I shouldn’t have believed it as quickly as I did.”
The stylist then replied with a few requests for the design before Abby got to work.
“I was so worried that the shipping would be delayed or something would happen that I just stayed up all night to finish it,” Abby said.
Misbin charged $250 for the hat, which took her six hours to make.
After shipping the hat to LA, Misbin went on with life, having no idea what the hat would be used for.
Six months later, Beyoncé dropped a video teaser on social media in promotion of her album release, and she was wearing Misbin’s hat.
In February, the accessory was featured in an Instagram post the “Crazy in Love” singer made to promote her Renaissance World Tour.
Misbin told BBC News that people didn’t initially believe her when she said she had made the hat for Beyoncé. But thanks to a close friend of hers, it was soon revealed that she was the brains behind this now-famous accessory.
After paying her friend Ryan $100, he messaged every fan account he could find. Eventually, a Twitter account with more than 40,000 followers shared a screenshot of Misbin’s Etsy store and tagged her. The tweet currently has over 4,000 likes.
Already thinking about your outfit for the Renaissance World Tour?
You can order the same exact hat that Beyoncé is wearing in the tour poster! (made by @abbypilled)
🔗: https://t.co/Z6HhP3ANyp pic.twitter.com/FbzB2IXPc3
— RENAISSANCE Updates 🪩 (@B7Album) February 1, 2023
Within days, Misbin’s order list exploded, so much so that she had to halt orders for the hat.
For the past month and a half, Abby has been working 12- to 15-hour days to fulfill orders, but she doesn’t mind.
“It’s not as grueling as it sounds, since I mostly work from home in my pajamas,” she told Insider. “I’m not really the chatty type, so I enjoy being alone and just working on my hats.”
She explained, “On Feb. 1, I sold 70 disco-ball hats at an increased price of $350 each. Before Beyoncé wore one, I was selling around 25 a month. I raised the price because I realized between the cost of materials and the amount of labor going into the hats, I was undercharging. People started reaching out with all sorts of time-sensitive requests, asking if I could make them a disco-ball hat for the Super Bowl or Carnival in Brazil. One even offered three times the price for a single hat if she could get it immediately. There were some offers that I just couldn’t say no to.”