How Hat Club has become a staple of the community in Phoenix

There were plenty of parties catering to out-of-towners surrounding the Super Bowl. But one pop-up in Central Phoenix was a celebration made for and by the local community.

Hat Club, a leading headwear brand, hosted the pop-up, which brought in hundreds of community members –mostly from the Valley. The Hat Club Super Mart was a concept shopping experience where customers could come and pick up a fitted hat and other merchandise.

Nathaniel Campos, who lives in Ahwatukee, waited in line for nearly two hours on the first day of the pop-up, Thursday. He was there to pick up hats for his personal collection.

“I’d say I’ve been collecting for about three years but buying from [Hat Club] since I was around 10. Before I moved to Phoenix my dad used to come up for business meetings & he’d go to the Arizona Mills which he’d make sure to always get us hats at Hat Club so that’s what really started it,” he explained.

Campos has been witness to the growth of the brand as both a consumer and as part of the team, picking up a part-time job at the warehouse where they pack the very same hats he goes and buys later.

You may ask yourself, "why wait so long for a hat?"

Campos says that besides the array of different designs, there’s emotional significance to these hats.

“I’d say just remembering the bond I had with my dad over hats, it was one thing we both had in common,” he remembers.

From an outsider's perspective, a baseball cap may seem like an ordinary item, but the culture behind it is where the real value is – that’s where you find the people.

How Hat Club got so big

Hat Club was founded in Phoenix in 1992 as National Hat Club. It has long been a staple in the city since its days of being based out of a janitor’s closet in Mesa. Their first investor was NBA star and veteran Danny Aige during his time playing for the Suns, according to the brand's website.

Between 1994 and 1995, National Hat Club and Ainge opened up seven stores in Phoenix. That’s when sales started to go up.

Through a merger with another sports merchandise retailer, Arizona Sports Club, owned by Paul and Stephen Satchel, Hat Club was formed in 1996 when the two companies came together.

Still based out of the Valley, the company now has stores across the country and has become one of the largest independent hat store companies in the United States.

Custom hats as a fashion must-have

The company has grown as the popularity of its signature hat became a fashion staple. Custom-fitted hats have become some of the most sought fashion items in the past couple of years. Hat Club has in many ways pioneered this, when in October 2019 their NoHo store in New York released the “pink bottom.”

The company took a traditional New York Yankees fitted hat and added a pink brim to the bottom of the cap, which caught fire in New York City. The pink was a nod to breast cancer survivors, a cause the core team cares about deeply.

“The last two to three years have been some insane pivotal moments for Hat Club as a whole,” explains Austin LaBoda, senior manager of Hat Club’s digital marketing team, “[We’ve] been at the forefront of creating lifestyle and streetwear culture behind the hat industry.”

LaBoda explains that there is an element of storytelling behind the hats, which has created a loyal community of fans.

“People were always worried about their new pair of Jordans or wearing their Stussy tee and things like that, worried about that part of their outfit more than the headwear,” explains LaBoda.

Hat Club saw an opportunity to make your headwear a staple of your outfit rather than an accessory.

“Hat Club was like, ‘Hey, why don’t we take this and bring it to a point where we’re doing some awesome storytelling,' having people really have an affinity for the hat and give them a reason that they really want to buy the hat,” LaBoda says.

Community and collaborators

In Phoenix, Hat Club has made a splash by offering custom hats that you wouldn’t be able to pick up at your local K-Momo. Their designs often involve collaborations with artists in Phoenix.

For the Super Bowl, one of the collaborators was DeAndre Hopkins, the Arizona Cardinals wide receiver. He had a line of custom Cardinals hats available that sold on the last day of the pop-up. The line stretched around the lot where the pop-up was being held, with people waiting to add a hat to their own collections or make some money reselling the hats.

Jimmy Gutierrez, an artist known for his airbrushing style, was another featured collaborator for this pop-up. His collection of custom Arizona Diamondbacks hats sold out. You can find those coveted hats going for upwards of $250-300 from resellers on sites like Grailed and OfferUp.

LaBoda reinforced Hat Club’s commitment to working with talented creatives, seeing the value in including them. The brand chooses to work with artists who are creating things in alignment with what Hat Club is doing, he said.

“We look at these people with admiration and we love their artistic value and what they’re bringing to the table,” he says. “We really just approach it, by saying, ‘Hey, we’re Hat Club, here’s what we are doing, here’s the story that we are telling, would you want to work with us in telling it?'”

Lorenzo Belassen, a creative director for Hat Club for the past three years aided in coming up with the concept for the recent pop-up. He said he saw community involvement at the very core of this event.

“Sometimes there’s a disconnect between what you’re seeing of a brand, that has great photos and everything that looks quality, but they lack relatability. What we do is just try to work with good, quality people that have awesome skills and highlight them,” he explained.

Belassen said when seeking out opportunities to work with other artists, he is looking for a natural collaboration.

“First and foremost, they have to be good people on a personal level," he said. "Another aspect is that they actually wear fitted hats. We don’t want to be forcing something.”

Saturday, the last day of the pop-up, was a culmination of the work of Belassen and his team to put the Phoenix community center stage of the celebration.

They invited other businesses and artists to the event, such as Loco Style Grindz, a local favorite Hawaiian BBQ joint. The Greater Good was there giving haircuts; Krèto, an artisan who works with concrete; Indigenous Enterprise performed at the celebration as well.

“We as a company try our best to go out and network with people at social events, but at the same time we are actually homies with people within the city you know,” said Belassen, “We’re human at the end of the day, we love to have fun and meet people genuinely.”

Many of Hat Club’s team members are born and raised in Phoenix like Belaseen is, which is why the brand feels so at home here.

Everything the team does at Hat Club, from designs to collaborations to marketing, is a celebration of what the city has to offer, exporting the culture of Phoenix not just to the rest of the country, but worldwide.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How Hat Club became a Phoenix community staple