COLUMBUS — A Columbus-based designer is looking to make inroads in the fashion industry. This is as Common Threads, a fashion district, recently celebrated its one-year anniversary. 

What You Need To Know

• Brooke Denune opened up her first retail store, By Field & Flower, in downtown Columbus


• The designer works with customers to create custom hats made strictly without animal products


• She left her wholesale, 9 to 5 job to open up a customized hat bar within the last two months that caters to men and women of all ages


• A portion of proceeds support bee and butterfly conservation through the Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund

Brooke Denune said it was always in her plans to have her own retail store, but she didn’t realize things would happen so soon.

“It’s so rewarding to be able to wake up and get to go to my own place now with my own name on it,” she said.

She’d worked in the fashion industry in Los Angeles and New York for seven years before deciding to return to Ohio to set up shop. The Kent State alumna said while in California, she was inspired to start a hat brand after learning about a family business that was about to close, which produced hats.

She’s been in business for the last three years but sold the hats on the side until she could grow the business enough to open a store. She’s been open for about two months now.

“I’m super excited that it’s full-time now,” Denune said.

She said it’s exciting to watch how much it’s already grown.

The hats Denune sells are vegan suede hats, which means they are made strictly without animal products.

“It’s very hard to find a vegan hat that doesn’t use animal products…even harder to find hat accessories that aren’t leather,” she said.

She makes certain her products are animal friendly.

“I’ve always loved animals,” she said. “I used to want to go to vet school. So that was a huge part of me starting a company as well. I wanted something that didn’t have any wool, didn’t have any leather, that everybody could enjoy.”

By doing it this way, she hopes it will spark a change in the fashion industry and encourage other designers to make their products without the use of animals. 

For now, while she has the brick-and-mortar shop, she travels frequently across the Midwest to host pop-up shops too. Plus, she sells her hats wholesale across the country and to boutiques along with the accessories for their own customized hat bars.

A portion of the proceeds Denune makes from her sales are donated to the Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, which is a pollinator fund in the United States. The fund supports the conservation of planted wildflowers for bees and butterflies to have a habitat.