Like Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle at Royal Ascot, designer Keyna Rankin stole the show at the 85th running of the Iroquois Steeplechase. Keyna capped a sleek white pantsuit with a dramatic white top hat improvised with flourishes of netting and a black feather she happened to have around the house. The standout look, drawing on the aesthetic of early-20th-century equestrian fashion, turned heads and earned Keyna the title of Most Stylish Female in our annual Nfocus Steeplechase Style Contest.

While Steeplechase 2026 may have been Keyna’s debut at the rite of spring benefiting Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, the horseraces were not her first rodeo when it comes to standing out in a crowd.

Nor is that iconic white top hat Keyna’s first crowning achievement, so to speak.

A veteran of pageants at the state and national level, Keyna knows the challenge and value of making a strong first impression. In the Miss America pageant system, in which she was runner-up to Miss North Carolina, she shared her talent as a singer. Then, in 1993, newly married Keyna earned the Mrs. America crown, a title that has served as a springboard for a diverse creative career.

Almost 30 years ago, music brought Keyna to Nashville, where she’s applied her creativity across fields from clothing to construction — in addition to touring as a backing vocalist for several singer-songwriters. “Mrs. America opened up a huge door of opportunities,” says Keyna, who is headed to California this fall to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the pageant.

Even though her résumé reads as “quite diverse,” she says her professional experiences share a thread of fashion and design. As a real estate agent with Keller Williams of Franklin, Keyna uses her background in construction to help homeowners and agents refine their properties to show at their very best. That can mean working on a newly built property to sell or move into. Or sprucing up a well-loved property to put on the market. Or rethinking a current living situation to use space more fully. In 2013, she founded Interior Koncepts, in Brentwood, with services ranging from home remodeling and decorating, to staging and space planning.

Anyone who loves Doolittle’s unabashed encouragement at the races — “Move your blooming arse!” — will appreciate Keyna’s fearless confidence when it comes to making design decisions for home staging. “I’m emboldened enough to say, ‘This isn’t working. Let’s put it in storage for now,” she says, in an infinitely more diplomatic voice than Hepburn’s inimitable Cockney.

Whether she’s festooning a festive Steeplechase chapeau or staging a home to catch a buyer’s eye, Keyna focuses on small details for maximum impact. “The little things you learn from pageantry help shape what I do today,” says the design queen of all trades. “Attention to detail, intention, confidence and authenticity all derive from my experiences with pageants.”