Mystic — She makes hats, but please don't call her The Hat Lady.

"That's one of the things I don't like — when people call me 'The Hat Lady' ...," said LeighAnne Teal, an academic by profession and a hat designer by inclination.

One of her specialties are hats for the Kentucky Derby, which had its 141st running this weekend. She produced a derby hat several years ago that won Best of Show out of about 600 hats during a pre-race competition, she recalled in an interview at her studio on Library Street, where local Realtor Judi Caracausa was having her hat fit for perhaps Mystic's most similar social event: the Antique & Classic Boat Rendezvous.

"I've always loved vintage," Caracausa said. "I'm a real girly-girl. I love makeup and clothes."

Teal calls Caracausa her quintessential client: someone searching for casual elegance who is willing to pay a premium for a finely made hat with a personal flair. Her clientele is high end, she said, and come from all over the world, including a member of the Danish parliament by the name of Mette Hjermind Dencker.

"She's all piss and vinegar," Teal said of her client, and when it comes to hats "the wilder the better." Dencker wore a blood red hat to the crowning of a Danish princess, she recalled.

An adjunct professor at LIM College in Manhattan, one of the few educational institutions in the world that focus on the business of fashion design, Teal has carved a niche by using up-cycled material in her work, including enchanting castaways she picks up at yard sales.

"It's all about using what exists and being sustainable," Teal said.

Teal designed hats and costumes for the 2012 Off-Broadway show "Unbeatable: A Bold Musical Journey," working with famed costumer John Schneeman, whose film credits include 2006's "The Devil Wears Prada" and 2007's "Hairspray." She has lectured at both the Lyman Allyn Museum and Connecticut College.

When it comes to hats for her company, Cheeky and Teal, the designer said she has a 50-50 rule: at least half of the materials she uses must be sustainable, meaning they comply with acceptable global environmental and labor practices. She has traveled the world studying sustainable supply chains or working on related causes and has a doctorate in international business.

Teal, who goes by the name LeeAnn Turgeon-Rutkovsky in her teaching at LIM College, has lived in southeastern Connecticut most of her life and enjoys being part of Mystic, halfway between Boston and New York. She has made a beautiful, light-filled studio out of what used to be a decrepit garage off the side of her modest home.

"It's really a dying art," she confessed of hat making, decrying the paper and plastic used in most store-bought head coverings these days. She says the hats she makes are born from real straw and cotton, among other products, making them more comfortable to wear because the material breathes.

Most of her business is by word of mouth, Teal said, and she rarely gets orders over the internet. She believes strongly that clients need to come in for hat fittings, and it is a rare person who doesn't have to come in several times to get it just right.

"Some hat fittings go up to 10 fittings," she said.

Teal figures she could make a living by hat making along, but she enjoys the three days a week she spends with students in Manhattan.

"I have to have the other part of my life to feel complete," Teal said.

While some people who call themselves hat makers buy basic styles and then add doo-dads to them, Teal, who also has a line of jackets, said she learned hat making in Switzerland during the 1980s from the ground up and enjoys creating designs from scratch.

"I can do the crazy stuff, but I do a lot of the normal stuff, too," she said. "I don't decorate hats. I do it all."

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow

What: Cheeky & Teal

Who: LeighAnne Teal

Where: 126 Library St., Mystic

Phone: 860-367-7831

Website: www.lateal.com

Email: lateal@gmail.com