Heidi Lee is a Couture Hat fashion designer who was born in Flushing, Queens, New York. She grew up living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She became interested in fashion when she was six years old. She went to school for graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is an artist, fashion designer and NYU professor based in New York City, most notable for her "Endless Echo Hat" created with a 3d printer from a scan of her face. The design is semi-autobiographical. It is based off the Echo Chamber effect of the internet. Which is a metaphorical description of a situation in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system. This hat was featured in the 2020 Superbowl Halftime Show promotion video, and is worn by Jennifer Lopez. Lee focuses on hats and headwear as a form of conceptual art as well as fashion elements. Her work has been featured in Vogue, Visionaire, Dazed and Confused, MTV, New York Times, New York Magazine, and The Creators Project. Her exhibitions have been at the Kentucky Derby Museum, MOSI Museum’s “3D Printing the Future”, and MAD Museum MAD Biennial: 100 Makers that manifest the cultural capital of NYC.” Some of her clients include Anne Hathaway, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Missy Elliott, and Lauryn Hill. Her work challenges and summons the viewer on a universal level, as if a mythological mind/ storyteller walks among us now. Not just borrowing from past aesthetics, she builds on a cosmology that links the modern world with our past Lee is currently teaching a class at entitled, Exploring Fashion: Accessory Design, at the New YorkUniversity of Professional Studies in the center of Applied Liberal Arts. She teaches pre-college students, fashion in general. She currently runs her own fashion brand called H E I D I L E E and she teaches fashion classes at New York University School of Professional Studies. Lee received a B.F.A. and B.G.D. in graphic design from Rhode IslandSchool of Design in 2005. Lee garnered the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Accessory Design Award in 2012 for her Cocktail Parasol Hat and Parasol Skeleton Hat designs. Her work was featured on the runway for Silicon ValleyFashion Week 2016.
