Mela Hoyt-Heydon started her millinery journey in 1980, interning for theatrical milliner Lloyd Lambert. While at graduate school for costume design, her first work was on Vegas style headpieces for the Tropicana in Puerto Rico. However, her passion has always been for historical hats. She created historical millinery for the entertainment industry in the gaps between productions while working as a union costume designer and teaching costuming at several universities and colleges. Some of her work can be seen in such films as Titanic, Emma, Comanche Moon, Bolden, and Dangerous Liaisons.

 Mela became a full-time professor of theatre in 1991, heading up the Costume Design and Construction Program at Fullerton College, while she continued designing for the entertainment industry. When she became Chairman of the Theatre Arts Department, she tapered off her outside design work and focused on historical millinery including taking a sabbatical to study with Rose Corey.

 In 2016 she opened Atelier Mela, a full-service millinery retail shop and workshop space in Fullerton, California, the first time her work was available to the public. With major projects for Walt Disney Imagineering (Shanghai Disney-costuming and millinery and Tokyo Disney-18th century millinery and props and a steady stream of modern and period hat customers, Mela retired from Fullerton College in 2017 to concentrate on the shop and teach millinery.

In 2020, Atelier Mela moved to Salem, Oregon where the shop is now open in the old Thomas Kaye Woolen Mill and part of the Willamette Heritage Center. Mela continues to design and create for Walt Disney Imagineering, having just completed the costumes and hats for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad in Disneyland and over 100 items for the new Fantasy Springs being built at Tokyo Sea in Japan.