7 things to check before you buy an LA hat
Most hats that say LA are team hats. If you're not a fan, you're wearing someone else's logo. Here's what to actually look at.
Search for an LA hat and you get the same thing on repeat: a baseball team's logo. Blue crown, white letters, a franchise mark stitched on the front.
That's fine if you follow the team. Plenty of people don't. They just want the city on their head — because they live here, grew up here, or the place means something to them.
There is no good option on page one for those people. So most of them settle, buy the team hat, and wear a logo they have no relationship with.
We make the other option. Before you buy anything — ours or theirs — here are the seven things worth checking. Most people check one.
Check whose name is on it
A team hat is a licensed product. You're paying to advertise a franchise. That's a real choice — just make it on purpose.
Ours says LOS ANGELES across the front, with a palm tree mark on the side panel. No team. No league. Just the city.
It reads the same from across the street. It means something different up close.
Check if you need to know your head size
Fitted caps come in sizes from 6⅜ to 8. Buying one online means measuring your head with a tape, guessing, or returning it.
Ours is a snapback. One size, five rows of adjustment. You don't have to know anything about your head to order it.
Check the panel count
Most caps are six panels. That means a seam runs straight down the middle of the front — right through the middle of the logo.
Ours is five panels. The front is one clean face, so the lettering sits flat and unbroken. It's a small thing you'll notice every time you look in a mirror.
Check the brim
Flat brims came up in 2013 and mostly stayed there. If you want a curve, you have to bend it yourself over a few weeks and hope it holds.
Ours arrives pre-curved. Wear it out of the box. Nothing to break in, nothing to peel off.
Check the fabric
A lot of caps are wool or an acrylic blend. They hold heat, and in an LA summer that matters.
Ours is a premium canvas blend. It's structured, so it keeps its shape, but it breathes and it softens instead of stiffening.
Check under the brim
Turn any cap over. Almost every one is blank grey underneath. It's the cheapest place to cut a corner, so that's where everyone cuts it.
Ours has MOVE WITH PURPOSE printed across the underside of the brim and inside the crown, repeating all the way around.
Nobody else sees it. That's sort of the point.
Check who made it, and how fast it ships
A licensed team snapback runs about $40 to $43. Most of that is the license and the middlemen. It ships from a warehouse that has never heard of you.
Ours is $37. We're a small brand in Santa Monica. We pack and ship our own orders, usually within 24 hours, and we make these in small runs — which is the honest reason we sell out.
City Snapback — first run
Two cities are gone from the first run. LA is what's left, in two colorways, and we don't reprint a run once it's finished.
You don't have to buy ours. But run those seven checks on whatever you're looking at, and you'll end up with a better hat than the one the search results handed you.
If you want the city without the team, we made that.