Why Hats? – Hats

Some Context

Hats, more specifically sports/baseball hats, have been apart of me for nearly all of my life. Each hat that I have gotten and worn carries all of the memories that I experienced in them. They mean so much more than simply just the sports team or design that sits on it. They serve as journals of different parts of my life, but only I can make those connections making them extremely personal to me

Baseball

Playing baseball, I was constantly wearing hats.

Baseball has always been the biggest reason that hats are so involved and connected to my life. I have been playing baseball since I was nearly 5, meaning I have been wearing hats on a consistent basis for nearly 17 years. Having a hat on my head became apart of my daily routine, on and off the field. From little league all the way to highschool, I have amassed a large portion of my collection just directly from playing baseball. This interest was a subconscious build up towards the obsession that it has become today all because of a sport that has a uniform requiring a hat.

Father

My dad always wore hats and it definitely rubbed off.

Every boy aspires to be like their father, it just happens naturally. My situation was no different because my dad wears hats almost as much as I do. Ever since I was little, he always had some type of sports hat on whether it was the Bears, White Sox, Blackhawks, or the Bulls. He has always been a sports lover and especially Chicago sports. Between the hats that he always had on his head and some that were off limits on display, he had a massive collection that rubbed off onto me early on. This early on support for an interest in hats only boosted me forward further into this obsession. It was not until the later half of highschool that my obsession would grow much more than I ever would have expected.

Friends

Friends influenced what type of hats I began wearing.

My obsession with New Era F9 Fifty hats began thanks to my friend Nathan, who was already deep into the world of these unique hats. Whenever we hung out, he wore hats that were vivid, detailed, and stood out in ways the typical store hats didn’t. One day, I joined him for a hat drop at STASH in Wicker Park, Chicago, and that experience completely changed my view on the culture and community around hats. From then on, it became a ritual to attend hat drops, stay on top of releases, and collect pins for our hats. The whole process, even the small act of bending the brim, became something therapeutic, and it shifted my focus from just representing my favorite teams to wearing something that simply looked and felt good.