The 90s just resurrected…. it came back as a hat. These Tommy Hilfiger vintage snapbacks are so clean. The block graphic, and bright, heavy contrast sum up the Tommy Hilfiger 90s style. This is 1990s through and through.
They’re also only £14.99 in the store. Cop yours now.
These MCM bucket hats are perfect! Made from a super thick faux leather monogram MCM fabric, and shaped perfectly. We only have a few in stock so be quick
Founded by German Michael Cromer in 1976, MCM became popular during the 80s for wealthy business folk and free-spending fashionistas who appreciated the understated designs and iconic monogram logo. The company, founded as ‘Michael Cromer Munich,’ specialised in travel bags as well as accessories and some clothing.
The brand began to fade in the 90s but stayed relatively strong in Asia, where it was later relocated after being bought out by South Korean entrepreneur Kim Sung-joo.
But MCM has found its international appeal once more, making a huge comeback in the last decade. Its rise has largely been fueled by celebrities and artists revisiting the brand as they look for retro inspiration for their latest looks.
We just got in a bunch of Sports Specialties “The Cord” script snapbacks, check the store now.
The cord snapbacks were a unique Sports Specialties’ hat, and the build of them is quite different to the regular wool or cotton snapbacks. Like all their 90s caps, the hat is made for Sports Specialties by Youngan, but is 5 panels, not six. This made the embroidery easier, which is a bit trickier on the cord material. Also the button is plastic not metal and larger. The adjuster on the back is a plastic slider too.
The hats came with single line or double line script embroidery
Ralph Lauren Polo is a huge part of hip-hop and urban fashion but like all sub-cultures, your average joe probably doesn’t know all that much about it. Their only interaction with Polo culture in urban fashion might be to ask: why is that dude wearing a knitted sweater with a cute little teddy bear on it? Or why did I see a second hand ralph lauren jacket sell for $3,000 on eBay?
You could write dissertations on 80s and 90s Ralph Lauren Polo culture, but here’s just a few pointers, for anyone wanting to understand why we sell Polo Bear gear.
“Lo Life” was the term adopted by a group of youths from Brooklyn in the 80s who had a fixation with all things Ralph Lauren. They would get together sometimes 2 or 3 times a day to boost Ralph Lauren items from stores, which they could sell on or keep for themselves. These guys wouldn’t leave the house unless they were covered from head to toe in the most sought after Ralph Lauren garms.
In a subversion of the norm, it was young black kids who were moving away from LL Cool J leather jackets and sportswear towards a brand that evoked the style of English aristocracy. The movement spread to many other major cities in the US.
In this hash tag age, the term “lo life” has become diluted to reference anything or anyone Ralph Lauren. But Lo Life was a lifestyle followed religiously by a group with founded on the corner of Utica and St Johns, Brooklyn NY. Many of the original members are now dead, imprisoned or live on and attend swap meets where they trade vintage Ralph Lauren to this day.
Check out some of the stories from original Lo Lifes in this 1998 article from Hip-Hop magazine Stress. Some of the tales are pretty crazy:
Some of the most popular Ralph Lauren Polo items include the Snow Beach, Polo Bears, Cookie Crest, P-Wing, Ski, Silk Crest, and Stadium. Illustration courtesy of Defunkd.com
Countless brands have copied the style of most of these lines over the past two decades.
Hip-Hop producer Just Blaze is considered to have one of largest collections of classic Polo garms. Check out the breakdown of his collection with Complex Magazine. Here he is rocking a stadium jacket, alongside Smoke DZA with a custom polo bear shirt/hat combo.
Taz “Ti$A” Arnold also has a decent collection below
Check some out our collection of Polo Bear 5 panels, polo bear pocket tees and polo bear watches, available now
Every day new identikit “brands” popup selling wholesale beechfield 5 panel caps with a 10c woven tag stuck on the front. There’s a hundred “brands” out there right now “their own” suede brim B658 hat. We like to do things differently, by making all our products from original or carefully sourced parts, and assembling them in unique ways. Take our new wooden brim 5 panel for example
The fleck acrylic crown is reinforced with a thick lining to make the cap firm and prevent wrinkles. The brim is a multi-toned high quality PVC wood print with textured detail. And the faux suede embossed front patch perfectly matches the brim. We are always looking to use the freshest materials to create innovating product
Few snapback lines made as great an impression on licensed sports caps as the American Needle Blockhead series.
Drew Pearson was one of the first companies to pump out their own version of the Blockhead hat; a refreshing change for a company known for its busy and vibrant snapbacks.
Lots of smaller companies also started making hats with block lettering on the back too. The blockhead style became a staple for NCAA hat manufacturers.
European hat licensee Campri Team Sports also adopted the style with their own team logo snapbacks. These hats are super clean but not as colorful as the American Needle snapbacks, and lack the side logo. This lot just came in – check the store to purchase
Sometimes vintage products can be educational as well as nostalgic. Check out these two tags from licensed WLAF snapback hats we dug up.
Here’s a bit more info:
Europeans have always had a fascination with American culture. From diners to Hollywood, to sports teams, Europeans have constantly tried to imitate aspects of the perceived glamorous side of the USA’s culture. The 90s was no different.
Based on the success of NFL exhibitions in European cities like London, big wig NFL financiers decided they would try and tap into the multinational market, to launch a Worldwide league of profitable football franchises. The World League of Football (WLAF) was born in 1990 and initially consisted of 10 teams spread over Europe and North America. The first hang tag above is from a hat from 1992 and details the 10 teams of the team as:
But the league evolved countlessly; changing its name and introducing new teams over the years in a bid to remain profitable. Our second hang tag is from a Barcelona Dragons snapback from 1995. This is the year the WLAF dropped its North America constituency entirely, and introduced more European teams like the Rhein Fire of Amsterdam. The league also renamed itself to the shorter, World League
We have a bunch of deadstock WLAF gear from snapback hats to coach jackets. We’ll be adding more shortly.
Because some of the teams were only in existence for such a short time, some of their clothing and hats have become much sought after and highly collectible. Check out some of the sports specialties script coach snapbacks below
Now defunct AJD Cap Co made some of the coolest snapbacks in in the 80s and 90s. These nostalgic hats with bold italics and contrast shadow are amongst our favorite snapbacks ever.
Here’s the history behind the cap… AJD never made on field caps (apart from for the Orioles for 2 years) and as a relatively small 70s startup they initially lacked the financial clout to throw money at pro athlete endorsement deals. So the company had to work extra hard on creating the freshest snapbacks to compete in a crowded market with big players like Sports Specialties, Starter and New Era.
In the 80s, when fashion dictated that the brightest and craziest designs would prevail, AJD were making some of its most original prints in the market. In 1991-92 they brought out their iconic “Zubaz” line of caps and pants, which blew up. The line featured animal prints in team colors which was totally unique at the time.
But the Zubaz line died a painful death in the mid 90s as fashion turned towards a more conservative style. Zubaz, however, was not forgotten. Last year Adidas borrowed AJD’s prints to launch their 2013 NCAA ZUBAZ uniforms
New Era have also made their own ZUBAZ brand snapbacks and fitted hats. Of course, they aren’t a patch on the originals.
As Zubaz sales died in the 90s, AJD buried the line in place of more accessible styles like the diamond line
In 1995 Greg Christensen, the then director of sales at AJD, explained “Consumers want caps with an understated look. The days of block lettering and all-out graphics are no longer here.” Likewise, Sports Specialities marketing manager, Tim Mitchell, remarked at the same time: “Licensing, as we know it, has returned to the core fan. And not only do they want a cleaner looking cap, but they are looking for caps that will stand-up to wear-and-tear”
So our AJD line is born!
The line like Zubaz, left its mark too. This bootleg Vikings snapback is a bootleg hat that was made in 2010, when vintage snapback hats just became popular. This was the first style that got copied.
The Hundreds are one of many labels who have made their version of our AJD hat
Snakeskin hats have become almost the norm today. From upscale brands to cheap China throwaways, it seems every baseball cap has some form of imitation snake on the brim.
Because of this saturation, It’s difficult to remember a time when snapback hats all had regular cotton or wool brims. But really, the trend isn’t that old, with its mainstream origins in 2011.
First, for the history: In the 80s and early 90s when snapback hats had arrived in mainstream fashion for the first time, a snakeskin hat was a very rare sight indeed. Your best chance of spotting one would be in Chicago, where the “buck fifty” trend began.
Buck fifties were the first kind of snakeskin baseball caps. They were named buck fifty simply because it would cost $150 to buy one. These were regular wool snapback hats – usually big teams like Bulls, Raiders and big brands like Starter & Sports Specialties – customized by hand with real python snakeskin.
The snakeskin would be sewn or glued directly to the top of the brim, the snap would be replaced by a matching snakeskin strap, and the button was often redone too. The handiwork varied depending on who made the hat. Some hat makers were perfectionists, whereas others were a bit sloppy, leaving rough edges and glue marks. Because the brim wasn’t totally deconstructed, most hats featured a piping or a rope, where the brim meets the crown, to cover any rough edges.
Back then it was often drug dealers who would wear the hats because they were some of the only people on the streets who could afford them. Check out this example of an OG buck fifty hat courtesy of video of ProfessorSnapp:
Buck fifty hats were always a tiny subculture of streetwear, but in 2011 snakeskin snapbacks exploded in to the mainstream. Don C, Kanye West’s manager was the man who made it happen, on the back of his hand crafted buck fifty hats that he made specially for his artist, and his pals like Big Sean and Jay-Z. Watch Don C making one of his early “Just Don” hats for Jay-Z
When Kanye et al started wearing Don C’s hats, fans immediately “needed” them too.
Don C started designing limited runs for RSVP gallery in Chicago. The hats retailed at $400, but they sold out in minutes because there was nowhere else to buy those kind of hats.
Most of Don C’s strapbacks are made using Indonesian python skin. The snakes are skinned and their hides are sent to a tannery for treatment, in a similar way to how leather is treated. The snakeskin can be dyed to any color, so the skin can match any hat colorway.
The rise in popularity of real snakeskin hats has obviously not been favorable with animal rights activists who take issue with the killing of the animals for their skins. It has been suggested that some of the snakes are skinned alive in the wild and left to die slowly and painfully. Regardless, demand never stopped growing for snakeskin snapbacks and soon enough other individuals and companies were making their own real snakeskin hats. Just about every hat manufacturer then began to make hats from faux snakeskin.
From a design point of view, the problem with Don C’s “Just Don” strapbacks is that they are not faithful to the original hats. His hats are usually made using Mitchell & Ness snapbacks, with their extra tall profile and long, blunt end brims. There are however, places where you can buy recently made buck fifty hats made using OG vintage snapbacks.
Oh Straps have made a snakeskin strapback from our vintage Chicago Bulls leather Logo 7 snapback. They also made a snakeskin strapback from a vintage Raiders starter script snapback.
But most people don’t want to drop $200 notes on a hat made from a dead wild python, so what makes a good snakeskin strapback today?
First off you have to pick the right shape. The brim has to be flat, not circular like a New Era fitted. Secondly you have to find a snakeskin brim that looks authentic, and matches the body of the hat. A lot of cheap snakeskin hats use prints that are overly stylized and are shiny, with unrealistic texturing. Check our leather snakeskin strapback for an example of a faux snakeskin put to work.
This is a faux snakeskin hat with a brim that compliments the hat body. The snakeskin is textured, thick and the belly runs right down the middle. Here’s an example of the snakeskin in another color. Check out how realistic the texturing is.
Billed as a vintage department store and taking up 9,000 square foot of prime London real estate, Blitz is the UK’s largest vintage clothing store.
We’ve been stocked in Blitz since its debut in the summer of 2011. Our deliveries have included deadstock beanies, t shirts, snapbacks, bucket hats, bags, and of course, our own branded goods.
Blitz is located off Brick Lane, London’s long-established hub for vintage clothing. But despite heavy competition from Brick Lane institutions like Rockit and Beyond Retro and a seemingly saturated vintage market, Blitz has thrived. The shop offers what most shops in the area don’t: the rare mix of fashion-centric vintage and retro goods alongside the genuinely old, more collectible pieces. For instance, chain stitched 70s varsity jackets might sit opposite new and pre-worn sweatshirts that have been tie dyed and dip dyed by hand that morning.
One reason we like supplying Blitz is because we can target female customers more easily. We find a lot of Blitz shoppers won’t have actively sought out our branded product, but when they come face to face with it on the shelves they often find themselves seduced by the prints and designs, and end up making that impulsive purchase.
Their average customer also chooses to shop there because they want to find more original items, that you can’t find in every high street shop. So we have found great success with our headwear lines, which we strive to make unique.
You can find Blitz Vintage London @
55-59 Hanbury St
London,
E1 5JP
Blitzlondon.co.uk
