Hats Off
Milliner Satya Twena's transcendent move to Ojai was in the stars
Written and photographed by Blue Gabor
When California native Satya Twena came to Ojai from Manhattan with her restaurateur husband, Jeffrey Zurofsky, and daughter, Wish, she had every intention of remaining bicoastal. But the laid-back West Coast lifestyle soon eclipsed her life back East. “Ojai completely seduced me,” she says. “I would sit outside surrounded by trees, the moon, and the stars and think there is nothing more healing nor beautiful than life in nature.” She found herself shuttering her New York hat factory and moving her millinery operations to a converted garage in Ojai’s East End.
Vintage hat forms line her open-air studio, which is scattered with spiritual talismans and vestiges of old-world millinery. Here the interior designer–turned–hatmaker continues to masterfully shape and embellish each of her custom-ordered creations by hand, using materials that include beaver, rabbit, and mink felts and accents that might include gold work and all types of embroidery.
Twena and Zurofsky’s second child, a son named Sage, was born in Ojai, and the family is now settling into their full-time home. Dinners are procured, with Zurofsky’s culinary expertise, from their backyard garden and prepared in an open-fire oven. A spirit of creativity reigns, as the children might be found running around wearing only their own custom-fitted hats.
Twena’s hat making grew from a kitchen operation in an East Village walk-up to a chance opportunity to own one of the last-standing hat factories in the garment district, where she made hats for socialites and celebrities including Usher, Lady Gaga, and Oprah. Today every hat is a custom work of art, made just for the wearer, in a process that begins with a few questions, followed by a Facetime call and sketches. “My hats often symbolize the next rendition of who my client desires to be,” says Twena. She incorporates constellations of iridescent threads in her designs and embroiders mantras or intentions in the linings. Like those who wear them, no two Satya Twena hats are alike.
“I believe my clients seek my work because I do the spiritual and emotional work. I meet them as an open vessel with the sole purpose of fulfilling their desires and intentions, and the rest is magic.” •
