Behida Dolic Millinery

Behida Dolic Millinery Behida Dolic Millinery. Hand-made hats. https://www.behidadolic.com

One-of-a-kind, wearable sculpture, hand-made in Hudson, NY and inspired by old films, hats, cars, furniture and art deco architecture.

For years, I would step out my door and wander down the narrow alley to my friend Charlie’s house, just to see if the la...
11/14/2025

For years, I would step out my door and wander down the narrow alley to my friend Charlie’s house, just to see if the lamp by his window was still on. If it was, I’d know he was probably settled in his beloved velvet wing chair, speckled with coffee stains, illuminated by the warm glow—lost in thought as he worked on the libretto for his latest opera.

Yet in the back of my mind, I knew there would come a day when I would walk to that corner and the window would be dark. That day would mark the end of an era, a farewell to one of the greatest friendships of my life. For the final time, I would whisper across the white picket fence in the dusk, “Good night, my darling friend. Good night, forever.”

I will miss you till the end of time, Charlie. No words can describe the depth of what your friendship has meant to me. You brought ease to my troubles, music to my sadness, and laughter that lightened my grief and loneliness. Enough to make it bearable.

Without you, I wouldn’t have made it.

I am certain of that.
💗😭🙏🏼

On an early morning in 1992, I was heading out to watch over our family cow, Ljubova, as she grazed peacefully in the fi...
05/11/2025

On an early morning in 1992, I was heading out to watch over our family cow, Ljubova, as she grazed peacefully in the fields. I saw Mama running toward me across the garden, a slice of bread in her hand, sprinkled with sugar and water. “Wait, Hido,” she called me by my childhood nickname. Her dimije, a traditional Bosnian long skirt, billowed at the sides, like sails catching the breeze. She handed me the bread and leaned in, tucking my messy hair behind my ears with her fingertips. I could smell the sun and fresh air on her blouse as she softly kissed my forehead.

That was the last time I saw my mother. Yet her tenderness has continued to grow within me, like flowers adding color to everything I do.

When I kiss my son goodnight and arrange the hair on his forehead, she comes back to me.

When I see curtains drifting in the wind, she comes back to me.

When life threatens to unmoor me, I hear her voice: “Hido, be like a sunflower, look toward the sun.”

Mama, I feel incredibly lucky—oh, so lucky. Many miracle mothers have appeared on my path, guiding me toward the sun and helping me navigate this life without you. I have been touched by so much kindness, compassion, and love from strangers.

Mama, I am all right.
I am loved.
And you have a little grandson who has brought your smile back to me. 😭🙏🏼💗


💗🌻

Dear friends,It has been a while. What a year! Unbelievably beautiful and heartbreaking, all at once. I felt I had so mu...
01/17/2025

Dear friends,
It has been a while. What a year! Unbelievably beautiful and heartbreaking, all at once. I felt I had so much to say, yet I held back immensely from doing so. Mainly to guard my heart and protect this precious time with my miracle post-cancer baby as we walk this path, bound by something beyond words, something extraordinary.

This past year has undoubtedly been the best of my life! At last, I’ve been given the kind of love and tenderness I have seen so many times before, but only in my dreams and the art I made on countless lonely nights. Every morning, as I awake to the gentle heartbeat cradled in my arms, I am moved to tears. It is nearly impossible for me to comprehend the miraculous turn my life has taken—a divine intervention, no doubt. Now and forever, I am convinced that anything is possible—for anyone.

Ironically, I am receiving this incredible gift at a time when our world is on fire, with all-too-familiar horrors unfolding in front of my eyes. I have often felt that my life was spared—through war, genocide, illness, and loss—so that I could help others. But the events of the last year have brought me to a halt.

I’m not going to lie; it has been difficult to hold this beautiful chapter of my life and to feel HAPPY when so many are suffering.

One morning at 4 AM, while I was walking to my studio, a thought emerged—a gentle whisper that perhaps happiness is not something I have to BE. But something to STAND in—the quiet, ordinary miracles of life. The way I like to stand in the words I write. The way I like to stand barefoot on the winter ground, imagining my feet plummeting to the center of the earth, past the frozen roots and sleeping rocks, as my spirit reaches for something that makes it feel so alive.

My wish for us all this year is to find our own little patch of happiness to stand in when the weight of the world gets too heavy to bear. To quiet our hearts, and let ourselves be blessed from wherever we stand. May we encounter deeper love and compassion for ourselves, those near us, and even those we don’t know.
We love you all so much!
Happy belated new year!!!
💗🌷
all the things that really matter

Bowie Phoenix HillApril 30, 2024Born on the day my forget-me-nots bloomed. 😭 The love of my life.I can’t stop crying, ki...
05/05/2024

Bowie Phoenix Hill
April 30, 2024
Born on the day my forget-me-nots bloomed. 😭

The love of my life.
I can’t stop crying, kissing, and touching his little cheeks!!!!
I can’t believe he is real!!!
Oh, my heart! I am so in love!
I can hardly breathe!
❤️❤️😭😭😭😭💗🙏🏼🙏🏼 😭😭😭😭😭

~Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.🙏🏼😭💗

It is hard to write this without crying. Life can be so lonely and terrifying at times—a mixed bag of things that never ...
04/10/2024

It is hard to write this without crying. Life can be so lonely and terrifying at times—a mixed bag of things that never go as we plan. But somewhere in there, if we can endure, there is beauty, the unexpected gift given randomly, suddenly.

This is my third attempt at motherhood. First, my little Ash, who tragically died before his first birthday. A few years later, I found advanced-stage breast cancer while pregnant. I did chemo with the baby, but had to let her go to survive. Then, the news of infertility followed the atomic bomb worth of chemo.

I joke that I am like a sturdy New York City cockroach, impossible to kill. But I must admit that, despite being brought to my knees numerous times in my life, this loss upon loss nearly obliterated me.

Looking back, had I not had my little shop, a door to open, lights to turn on, hats and dresses to make, and watercolor paints to shape the ineffable sorrow that defies language…I don’t think I would’ve made it.

And without a doubt, there’s no way I would’ve made it without you. The kind and loving people who entered my door and gave me life when I needed it most. Sometimes, I wonder if my entire existence was meant to build my little shop, brick by brick, hat by hat, just so these beautiful strangers could find their way into my soul.

*The young woman who tried on a red dress and wept with me over the grief of losing our babies.

*The breast cancer doctor who bought a hat the same week my son died, and later saved my life.

* The 75-year-old hat-loving poet who showed me how to stand up amidst ruins and still ask, how do I reinvent myself amidst all this? How can the God within me create beauty during the brief moment of my life?

*My beloved, Z. The tender heart before my window. Look, my love! You gave me a peony, but now it is a field.

Thank you all from the depths of my heart. I will always tell my little boy the wondrous tales of how beautiful humanity can be.

My darling friends, it is never things we buy or the possessions we own, but the threads of love and compassion we delicately weave amidst our hearts, that will ultimately save us from loneliness.
❤️🕊️🙏🏼🌱

Letting Go ~This morning I read that “surrender” originates from a French word meaning “to melt into that which is highe...
02/09/2024

Letting Go ~
This morning I read that “surrender” originates from a French word meaning “to melt into that which is higher than yourself.” I thought: What a beautiful description of an often brutal feeling.

There may come a time in all of our lives when we are faced with total powerlessness. When all control has vanished. The frightening moment that makes us claw and grasp at any survival rope that remains, believing that we can climb our way to safety.

I’ve clung to these ropes many times. Especially during the four years in which I lost both of my children and received a cancer diagnosis. Looking back, I don’t recall melting. Instead, I was wrestling with rage — raw, ugly pain that pulsed and strained beneath my skin, like a wild animal.

I kicked and screamed for months. Until, finally, all of my survival strategies stopped working. And it was in that moment of complete surrender, that something bigger than myself began to gush out of me like a river through a broken dam.

My pain took on a life of its own. I reached for my brushes and painted human-scale watercolor portraits of everyone I had loved and lost. I watched their colors mute softly like beautiful memories trapped in grief. And I began to write personal essays to make sense of the faith I was given. My vulnerability became my architect, building rooms in everything I touched, into which my soul could slide and wait for a spark of hope to reemerge.

I have learned that sometimes our true faith can only find us when we are brought to our knees, acknowledging our own powerlessness. And in that humility, we often discover the source of new beginnings.

And perhaps, in these moments, we can begin to see God in everything — in the paintbrush, on a blank page, or in the midst of a sandstorm.

Terror crept towards us. My siblings and I sat huddled on the grass with our father, watching distant bomb explosions pa...
01/23/2024

Terror crept towards us. My siblings and I sat huddled on the grass with our father, watching distant bomb explosions paint the horizon in colors of sunrise. The call to prayer told us it was time for dinner, but tonight we would not be seated on the floor, knees tucked beneath the sofra, our traditional Bosnian table. Tonight, there would be no trace of our mother’s stuffed cabbage or phyllo dough pie—or of our beloved mother, who had been gone for two long years. A few weeks later, my father was killed. My siblings and I became war orphans. Left behind to fend for ourselves amidst chaos.

Sometimes, late at night, I would lay on the floor, wrapped in a blanket, gazing at the moon through a gigantic gr***de hole in the roof — its clarity and beauty a reprieve from loneliness, hunger, and fear. I prayed to Allah that someday I might look at that same moon from a far better corner of the world.

Tonight, I have the same wish for every orphan sleeping on the cold ground, trembling in fear, loneliness, and hunger. May they find a bit of hope to hang onto, and never let it go. May they be spared from bombs, hatred, and those committed to evil in this world. 🕊️🙏🏼🕯️

August 2023. Block Island. 🍉Prayer on an early morning birthday run:Remember, remember, this here and now. The way vines...
09/06/2023

August 2023. Block Island. 🍉
Prayer on an early morning birthday run:

Remember, remember, this here and now. The way vines unfurl and shadows fall on the path. The way the woodpecker presses his ear against the mulberry tree, listening for something deep inside. The way your bones tremble beneath the weight of all you’ve lived.

Sink a little deeper with each footfall.
Reaching for the heart of the earth.
Drink it up.
Drink it up.
For this is it, here and now.

a gift to be here another year
🙏🏼🍉🌱

The worst thing is not to try. To know what you want and not go after it. To live for years in pain and longing, never k...
08/09/2023

The worst thing is not to try. To know what you want and not go after it. To live for years in pain and longing, never knowing whether something might have happened if you just tried.

This was my mantra in 2018 when I started my first line of dresses out of a chemo chair. What the heck? What is there to lose? If you don’t try, you’ll never know.

I’m glad I tried. It saved me.
🙏🏼🌱

“There is no crystal ball. There is only a decision in which you must place all your faith.”Recent words of comfort from...
07/21/2023

“There is no crystal ball. There is only a decision in which you must place all your faith.”

Recent words of comfort from my oncologist, a 75-year-old Greek goddess who long ago purchased a light gray hat in my shop and, years later, saved my life from advanced-stage breast cancer.

Her advice repeats in my ears as I run along country roads. As I stitch loose buttons in my shop. As I weep in my car because I can’t make up my mind. And especially in the quiet, early dawn, as I glue words together with hope of shaping some kind of meaning or sense of control.

When am I going to learn that I can’t stop the river?
That there is no control?
No way of knowing where the river will take you until you get there?
And no possibilities at all without letting yourself be carried along by the current?

Imagine your story unfold as you hope it will. Stitch that image into your heart and into everything you do!! Life created out of heartfelt yearning is your best life raft, river, and oar.
💗🌱

Address

610 1/2 Warren Street
Hudson, NY
12534

Opening Hours

Monday 11am - 6pm
Wednesday 11am - 6pm
Thursday 11am - 6pm
Friday 11am - 6pm
Saturday 11am - 6pm
Sunday 11am - 6pm

Telephone

+15185675829

Website

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