Sunday 1 November 2009

Caps: The bent peak way


If you are of the hip hop, streetwear persuasion, you might want to stop reading now. Particularly if you also prefer your headwear to be of the pristine New Era variety, because I have a confession to make.

I bend my peaks.

Obviously I don't bend all my peaks because quite a few of my caps already have pre-bent peaks, kindly shaped by a person somewhere in Asia.

But for those peaks that arrive flat, well they don't stay flat for long. The thing is, I have to do it. I have tried to go with the street flow, but one look at myself in a cap with an unbent peak is all it takes to make me realise. I look like Kevin the Teenager.

It could be the shape of my head, but I put it down to my generation. This is a generation which largely precluded hip-hop and all its idiosycracies. Granted, we had Public Enemy and NWA - even Boogie Down Productions, but it wasn't so much of a movement that we bothered to go out and track down jeans so big that they fell below our bumcheeks, or bandanas or XL tee shirts. Or wear our caps as if we'd just stuck them on our heads and walked out of the sport shop, poppin' a cap in the assistant on the way. We removed the stickers, and we bent the peaks.

Don't get me wrong. It's not like I have anything against straight, unbent peaks, they're just not for me. In the same way that I don't feel the need to drive a blacked out Chevrolet Suburban with a Glock in the glovebox.

So bend them I will. Old habits die hard.

Oh, and I know that isn't a New Era cap (do those peaks even bend?) in the picture. It's a Supreme panel cap. With a nicely hand-bent peak.

People who read this post also read :



1 comment: