{"id":266,"date":"2019-03-01T11:33:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T16:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/?p=266"},"modified":"2019-03-04T10:26:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T15:26:29","slug":"you-say-squatchee-i-say-squatcho-dad-hats-and-everything-else-you-need-to-know-about-queensboro-and-custom-embroidered-logo-hats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/you-say-squatchee-i-say-squatcho-dad-hats-and-everything-else-you-need-to-know-about-queensboro-and-custom-embroidered-logo-hats\/","title":{"rendered":"You say Squatchee, I say Squatcho – Dad Hats and Everything Else You Need to Know about Queensboro and Custom Embroidered Logo Hats."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.\u201d\u00a0 – Donald Trump<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A few years ago, we started seeing a lot of internet searches for \u201cDad Hats<\/a>\u201d.\u00a0 The first time I saw it, I remember thinking \u201cWhat the heck is a Dad Hat?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As all die-hard baseball fans know, it\u2019s Spring Training time in Florida and Arizona.\u00a0Though we\u2019re baseball fans, we\u2019re bigger baseball hat fans.\u00a0 So far this year, our custom embroidered hats<\/a> business has been booming.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been selling hats with custom logo embroidery for over 30 years.\u00a0 Over those years, a lot has changed in the hat business.\u00a0 When we first started selling custom logo hats, we were still in Brooklyn.\u00a0 At the time, you couldn\u2019t get a fully assembled hat on an embroidery machine, so we worked with a factory in Covington, Kentucky that would send us the pre-cut front hat panels which we would embroider and then send back to the factory for assembly.\u00a0 The fully assembled hat would then be sent back to us in New York and we would send the finished hats on to our customers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The process was indeed cumbersome, but like with our custom logo polos<\/a>, it did allow us to be the first company in the country (and most likely the world) to offer custom embroidered logo hats to small and medium sized businesses and organizations.<\/p>\n

We kept things simple back then.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We offered two hat colors, white and navy.\u00a0 Our turnaround time wasn\u2019t much to brag about, but we did love the little custom embossed clasp we had made for the leather back strap which had a little shirt stamped right into it.\u00a0 Any old-time customers out there who still have one of those?<\/p>\n

Trying to speed turnaround up a little, I found another hat factory on Zerega Avenue in the Bronx and started running up there in my station wagon, shuttling hat panels and finished hats back and forth between the Bronx and Brooklyn.\u00a0 There was an actual hat historian at this factory and he explained to me that the reason a baseball hat always has 6 rows of stitching on the bill had to do with an obscure tariff law designed to protect domestic hat manufacturers.\u00a0 I wish I could remember all the details, but I do remember when hat imports first started coming into the country; none of them had 6 rows of bill stitching (now they all do).<\/p>\n

In the mid 90\u2019s, innovations in embroidery technology eventually allowed for embroidery on a finished cap.\u00a0 This occurred just as we were moving to North Carolina, which was good timing, because just like with the shirt manufacturers, the hat manufacturers were all closing down too, and all the hat production was moving to Asia.<\/p>\n

Baseball hat lore has it that the first baseball uniforms were worn in the 1840\u2019s, but hats weren\u2019t added until the New York Excelsiors donned them in 1860.\u00a0 The first baseball hats were modeled after jockey hats and had a somewhat floppy crown and short brim.\u00a0 Through the 1950\u2019s and into the 60\u2019s, fans were mostly wearing fedoras at the game, which couldn\u2019t have helped sight lines much, but as modes of dress became increasingly casual, the baseball cap soon found its way from the field into the stands, quickly \u00a0followed by team jerseys and other fan swag.<\/p>\n

People do matter in history and culture, though, and today\u2019s question of \u201cWhat the heck is a Dad Hat?\u201d sits at the feet of a very influential American, filmmaker and sports fan Spike Lee, the newly minted Oscar winner for Best Adaptation of a Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman.<\/p>\n

To the place that it all started, New York City, this story now returns.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As many New Yorkers know, Spike Lee is a huge NY Sports fan, particularly when it comes to the Knicks and Yankees.\u00a0 In 1996, Lee called up Christopher Koch, owner of New Era Cap company, the supplier of all Major League Baseball hats, with a unique request.\u00a0 As any New York sports fan or movie buff also knows, Spike Lee is a very colorful and deliberate dresser.\u00a0 As the story goes, Lee had a red jacket he really liked.\u00a0 He wanted to wear it to a Yankees game, but needed a hat to match.\u00a0 His request of Mr. Koch and New Era?\u00a0 A red Yankee hat!\u00a0 Considering at the time the Red Sox also wore red hats, the request was indeed extreme.\u00a0 George Steinbrenner was called in for consultation and gave his approval.\u00a0 He may have been a bad owner, but he did recognize an opportunity when he saw one!\u00a0 The hat was produced, Lee was prominently featured on TV wearing it, and a Star was Born.\u00a0 People were shocked, but immediately the idea that the previously unremarkable baseball hat could be fashionable shot forth into the universe like a line drive off Derek Jeter\u2019s bat!<\/p>\n

To have a revolution, you need a status quo.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t long before the classic baseball cap, with a flat brim and snapback closure, sporting various combinations of logos and colors, became a staple of the streetwear uniform.\u00a0 Soon the suburban kids started wearing them and a quick 10 years after the debut of Spike Lee\u2019s red Yankee cap, fashion, non-professional sports teams\u2019 hats, made up half of New Era\u2019s total business.<\/p>\n

The flat brim snap back had a decidedly youthful look, which their frequent appearance in music videos only reinforced.\u00a0 As some of these young kids began to enter adulthood many were ready to change it up some.<\/p>\n

Pretty soon, the unstructured, much softer, curved bill baseball hat became popular.\u00a0 It is not clear how these hats got the nickname Dad Hats, but when Barak Obama, the Dad in Chief was pictured in Martha\u2019s Vineyard wearing one, it all seemed to make perfect sense and the name stuck.\u00a0 Dad Hats started trending big time on Google and across the rest of the Internet.\u00a0 Today, the Dad Hat is the hat of choice.<\/p>\n

\u2026 at least for most.\u00a0 The most recent New Yorker now innovating in the hat space is Donald Trump.\u00a0 Trump\u2019s MAGA hats are not flat brim, but they are a little high crowned to be considered a Dad Hat.\u00a0 In fact, in shape they appear to be closer to a trucker hat, though they don\u2019t have the mesh back and sides.\u00a0 If Trump was smarter about hats, he probably could have gone the relaxed mesh back trucker design route and owned that hat shape for the modern era. \u00a0Instead of a MAGA hat it would have been called a Trump hat. \u00a0<\/p>\n

And one last thing before the bell rings \u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You know that little button on top of the baseball hat?\u00a0 That\u2019s called a squatchee, or squatcho if you prefer.\u00a0 Squatcho is a made-up term from a book from the 1980\u2019s of words that don\u2019t exist but should.\u00a0 The word was popularized by Bob Brenley, a former MLB player (a catcher, naturally) and manager.\u00a0 Brenley is currently an MLB commentator and says he first heard the term from a teammate, another catcher.\u00a0 David Price, a 6\u20196\u2019 pitcher for the Red Sox, always takes the squatcho off of his hats so he doesn\u2019t cut his head when he stands up quickly in the low-ceilinged dugout.\u00a0 Spike Lee, at 5\u20195\u201d, doesn\u2019t have that problem.<\/p>\n

Play ball!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m off to Africa next week to visit some of our shirt factories, so I may be taking a week off from the blog.\u00a0 Look for an update the week after next!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.\u201d\u00a0 – Donald Trump A few years ago, we started seeing a lot of internet searches for \u201cDad Hats\u201d.\u00a0 The first time I saw it, I remember thinking \u201cWhat the heck is a Dad Hat?\u201d As all die-hard baseball fans know, it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,4,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}