q&a

Beyoncé’s Renaissance Hat Has a Wait List, Too

Yeehaw. Photo: beyonce/Instagram

While tickets for Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour soar to heights previously unknown to man, a slightly smaller wait list is rapidly developing on Etsy. There, future concertgoers and superfans want to buy the glittery cowboy hat that Beyoncé wears in the tour poster. It’s the biggest thing to happen to homemade goods since Bernie Sanders’ mittens.

The hat’s creator, Abby Misbin, runs the Etsy shop TrendingByAbby from her home just outside Philadelphia and was inundated with orders after the tour poster dropped. This particular hat is probably the most painstaking piece of Misbin’s repertoire — she glues the mirrored tiles on by hand, which takes about five times longer than the other sparkle-dipped, marabou-fringed cowboy hats in her shop. “I’ve been able to get help from friends and family with things I don’t have to physically do myself,” she said over the phone from her home. Still, she’s determined to get a yeehaw-shaped disco ball to every Beyhive member who wants one. When we spoke to her Monday, she was hard at work gluing.

Let’s get right to it: How did you get your hat on Beyoncé’s head?

At the beginning of June 2022, a stylist messaged me on Etsy. It said something like, “Hi, Abby, where are you located? I’m looking to buy this hat for Beyoncé. Need it by the 9th.” I definitely screenshotted it. It had no grammar or punctuation, which is how I type, too, so I get it. I mailed the hat to Los Angeles. I figured it wasn’t a scam because the stylist had her verified Instagram connected to her Etsy account, so I could see that she’s worked with Beyoncé and other celebrities before. She paid me fully for it, so in the worst-case scenario, it was just a really weird lie?

I had no clue whether it was gonna be used. I was thinking, She’s gonna look at the hat and not like it. I was just refreshing my phone and hoping for the best. I didn’t see it when her album art got released. She’s wearing a cowboy hat but not my cowboy hat, which was the biggest bummer. And then the tour poster came out, and she was wearing it.

You noticed it was your hat. But did anyone else?

No one had any idea it was mine. I tried my best to get people to notice — I replied to like 50 tweets saying, “OMG, this hat is in my shop! I made it!” I got one or two people who knew it was in Beyoncé’s music video asking for it, and that made me happy.

I sold out once one very popular Twitter account posted it. My friend messaged them about my shop, and they said, “That’s awesome, we love that it’s a small business, we’ll promote it right away.” The tour poster dropped at 8 or 9 a.m., and by 11 a.m., I was sold out. Everyone wants to wear them to the tour.

How many orders did you get?

I had maybe 75 orders placed in the first day or two. I’m hoping to finish those within a few months. My roommate and I hodgepodged together an email wait list, which has 474 people right now. I think there’s a maximum of 500.

Tell me about how you started making hats.

Sometime in 2020, my friends and I saw these cowboy hats on TikTok where people would throw parties and wear matching hats. We all thought it was cute, and my friends were like, “Abby, make these hats for us.” I’m the crafty person in the group. They turned out really cute, and we all took pictures and made silly little TikToks in them. A few more friends saw the video and were, like, “Ooh, can I get one?” I would sell them for, like, 30 bucks each when they probably cost 25 to make and took me an hour each. Eventually someone asked me, “Why don’t you start an Etsy?” And I was like, “That’s probably a smart idea.” So I did that.

Are you trying to get Renaissance tickets too?

If they gave me free ones, I’d give them away to one of my Instagram followers. I’ve gained like 200 huge Beyoncé fans on my Instagram, and they’re so nice and willing to wait for hats.

There’s a Wait List for Beyoncé’s Renaissance Hat, Too