The Aspiring Streetwear Designer’s Guide to Hats
Streetwear is one of the most self-expressive forms of popular fashion. Bright colors and bold designs make streetwear apparel some of the most interesting pieces on the market today.
Starting in California in the early ’80s, the DIY graffiti look spread from California like wildfire into other subcultures. It was evident in punk style in the Midwest, Harlem’s budding hip hop culture and, on the other side of the world, becoming the epitome of fashion in Japan.
Since the very beginning, hats have been an essential part of streetwear and have become synonymous with the culture. Get inspired by the stories of these iconic and upcoming streetwear brands and the hat styles they have helped propel into the spotlight.
Yupoong One Ten Snapback
The Most Popular Styles
Fashion can change quickly and there are few elite designers that can keep up and stay relevant. The 5 Panel, Snapback and New Era Baseball caps, as well as Bucket Hats, have all fought their way to the top of the heap. All the hottest streetwear brands have a unique take on these iconic hats in their collections.
Jakprints offers customizable versions of each of these styles in a multitude of colors with custom embroidery options so you can take your inspiration and start establishing your own brand today.
5 Panel Hat
Each generation has its own definitive style. The 5-panel hat is this generation’s contribution to streetwear, offering a new take on classic flat brimmed hats and popular enough to become a mainstay in fashion for years to come.
These brands each have their own version of the 5 Panel Hat featured in their collections. Get inspired by their stories and get started making your own.
Yupoong 7005 Jockey Cap
HUF
The HUF brand was was started by New York native, Keith Hufnagel with the Do-It-Yourself attitude synonymous with skate culture. Since its launch as a small boutique in the early 2000s, HUF has grown to be one of the most iconic streetwear brands, supporting skaters and craftsmanship.
iLTHY
iLTHY (I Love the Hype) is a streetwear brand launched in 2009 from Cleveland, Ohio focused on art and drawing their inspiration from sports and pop culture.
Creating For Your Brand
Jakprints offers the Yupoong Jockey cap (featured above) for custom embroidery. This style comes in six solid colors and Green Tiger Camo. The 5 Panel hat has an adjustable back and comes completely unbranded and ready for your custom embroidery. It is small and flexible and is quickly becoming the most popular hat among designers.
Snapbacks & Trucker Hats
Early aughts’ fashions are being re-imagined – this includes the trucker hat and, of course, snapbacks aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Classic skate brands like Burton and Vans are all over this look. But these brands weren’t always household names, both overcame huge obstacles to become the well-established names they are today:
Yupoong Classic Trucker- The trucker hat features the classic mesh back and adjustable snap enclosure.
Burton
The snowboarding company, Burton, is the most iconic brand in the world of snowsports and has supported some of the best snowboarders in the world. Jake Burton Carpenter brought snowboarding to the mainstream by convincing the first ski resorts to allow his boards on their slopes. Since then, the brand has continued to make headlines every season.
Vans
Paul Van Doren created the Vans brand from a dirt floor in Anaheim, California to the towering skate brand empire it is today with nothing more than an 8th-grade education. In the mid-70s, the brand started designing shoes specifically for skateboarders and never looked back.
Creating For Your Brand
Jakprints has more than a handful of customizable snapbacks but, when it comes to designing for streetwear, we suggest going for the Yupoong Classic Trucker or the Yupoong 5-Panel Snapback.
The 5-Panel Snapback has an uninterrupted front panel open for embroidery and appears flatter in the front than traditional rounded baseball caps. The open panel in the front, instead of one with the seam down the middle, is popular with streetwear brands because of it’s less sport oriented, more high-end finished look.
Both of these hats come in two-tone and solid tone styles and are perfect for embroidery.
Yupoong 5-Panel Snapback
New Era & Pro Style Baseball caps
New era started as a Buffalo, NY-based company who exclusively set out to make newsboy hats. They’ve come a long way since then. For the last 92 years, they have been the most influential hat makers in the world producing the most popular hats on the market for decades, producing more than 50 million caps a year.
New Era Flat Bill Snapback
New Era
New Era is credited with creating the very first official MLB baseball cap and all but invented sports merchandising when they created a custom red Yankees’ cap for Director Spike Lee. Since, they’ve widely expanded their market to tailor to all audiences, including Couture New Era hats.
Creating For Your Brand
For years, designers have been asking for a customizable version of the fabled New Era Baseball cap and it’s finally here. The New Era 400 features a flat bill, the New Era sewn in label, and a snapback enclosure. Even better, it’s available in 8 stand out colors with custom embroidery. The New Era brand alone is a status symbol, attach your design to this hat and set your brand up for success.
Bucket Hats
The Bucket Hat represents an era in rap history. When Big Bank Hank donned one in “Rapper’s Delight”, the first rap music video ever produced, the bucket hat earned a place in hip hop legacy. In the early 2000’s LL Cool J and his red Kangol defined the style for the whole culture, a style that still has a huge influence on fashion, more than a decade later.
When orders started flooding in for customized bucket hats, we realized this is one trend that just won’t quit.
These streetwear designers are taking advantage of this look and your brand can too.
Yupoong 3003 Bucket Hat
Palace
This London streetwear brand was started in 2010 and it pulls its inspiration from 90s nostalgia. This brand manages to stay true to its skate roots in a scene that frequently becomes overexposed and overhyped. They were able to fill a streetwear niche in London and now show alongside huge designers, like Adidas, at Fashion Week.
Stussy
Stussy is credited by many for creating the streetwear look, after signing his surfboards with his name the signature later found its way onto t-shirts and other apparel. Now, Stussy is one of the top names in streetwear and has weaved its way heavily into surf and hip hop culture.
Creating For Your Brand
Jakprints offers the customizable Yupoong Flexfit Bucket Hat in five different colors with custom embroidery. The Premium Flexfit Sweatband is unique to this hat and creates a comfortable fit for nearly all sizes.
Paul Van Doren built the Vans brand with an 8th-grade education and Jake Burton Carpenter all but invent the sport of snowboarding. Luckily, Jakprints is here to make your rise to the top a little easier. We aren’t a streetwear brand, we’re a printing company. We’re not here to become the next big thing at the skatepark– just print it. All of these iconic styles in customizable options in dozens of colors with incredible in-house embroidery are available through our website.
You can find out more about custom embroidery for hats and other apparel here: How to Get the Most Out of Custom Embroidery
Contact us with any questions and to find out more about custom hats and other customizable apparel available at Jakprints.