A simple six-panel baseball cap with an adjustable back strap.
At first glance, the design may look like a straightforward, classic baseball cap. However, reaching this final shape took a considerable amount of time and work.
Leather behaves very differently from woven fabric, and using the same patterns as a conventional fabric cap simply did not produce a shape we were satisfied with. We made a sample, redrew the patterns, made another sample, adjusted them again, and repeated the process over and over.
I don’t remember the exact number, but we made at least ten prototypes before arriving at the final shape.
With a hat, even a difference of just a few millimeters can completely change its appearance and fit.
Finding the right balance is one of the most difficult parts of hatmaking, and also one of the details I care about most.
The simpler the design, the more important the silhouette and fit become.
The stitching on the crown is sewn one row at a time using a single-needle sewing machine.
Double-needle machines, commonly used in mass-produced hats, can sew two parallel rows of stitching at once, but typically leave a spacing of around 10 mm between them.
This works well with woven fabrics, but on leather, that width can make the stitching look too heavy.
By sewing each row individually with a single needle, we are able to reduce the spacing to approximately 4 mm, giving the cap a cleaner, sharper appearance. Whether in hats or clothing, the narrower the spacing between parallel rows of stitching, the more noticeable even the slightest deviation becomes, requiring a high degree of precision.
Although the cap has an adjustable back strap, we chose not to make it one-size-fits-all.
Instead, it is available in four sizes.
Most mass-produced baseball caps are made in a single size and rely on the adjuster to accommodate different head sizes. When a cap has to be tightened or loosened too far, its intended silhouette can easily become distorted.
We also took a different approach to grading the patterns between sizes.
In mass production, it is common to adjust the size by changing only the center panels of the six-panel crown while keeping the other panels unchanged.
While efficient, this method can compromise the overall proportions. The master size may be perfectly balanced, but as only the center panels change in the other sizes, the balance of the entire crown can shift. Another issue is that the crown depth does not necessarily increase as the size becomes larger.
For this cap, all six crown panels are individually redrawn for each size.
This allows the cap to maintain its intended silhouette and proportions throughout the size range, while the crown depth changes naturally in relation to each size.
It may look simple, but its shape is the result of countless small details and refinements.