From day one, we decided we would only start Storied Hats if we could do it the right way – with values at the center of everything we do. That’s why our tagline is “Hats with values, not logos.”
This can mean a lot of different things, so we decided to break it down a bit and share the specific ways that values are our driving force.
Planet
In early 2019, we became a member of 1% for the Planet, a nonprofit started by the founder of Patagonia. As a member, Storied Hats donates 1% of all sales to environmental nonprofits. Because of your purchases, we can do our small part to help the organizations on the front-lines of protecting the environment.
While donations after sales are great, the biggest impact we can make is before we sell anything. That means sourcing the most sustainable fabrics we can find. Organic cotton and hemp, for example, don’t use pesticides which is good for the earth, good for the workers, good for you. This isn’t a minor decision. Traditional apparel is one of the dirtiest industries and the chemicals to produce crops like non-organic cotton cause cancer in workers and harm waterways. We’re not going to be a part of that.
People
This is a big one – to ensure the dedicated workers who make the hats are treated with dignity and paid fairly. We’re thrilled we’ve found a manufacturing partner that has the highest score from the leading third-party accreditation organization, Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP).
WRAP’s principles include worker health and safety, fair pay, collective bargaining rights, no discrimination, zero tolerance for human rights violations, and more.
Community
Before we even launched the company we had a nonprofit partner, Service Year Alliance, as part of our Belief Line – hats that symbolically represent social causes. 100% of profits from this line are donated to the causes represented by the Belief Line hats.
Our goal with the Belief Line is to combine great design with great meaning, creating something you love to wear and therefore generates more donations and more awareness.
Making it all accessible
We started Storied Hats because we absolutely love baseball caps but couldn’t find a great selection without logos. The limited ones we could find often cost $50-$75 and they weren’t even using the more sustainable, expensive fabrics. Those prices just felt ridiculous to us.
To do the most good, sustainable apparel must be priced as reasonably as possible. That’s why despite using much more expensive, sustainable fabrics, we’re keeping our prices much more reasonable so more people can enjoy great hats.
We aren’t there yet
We’re less than five months old so we aren’t yet where we want to be in everything we do.
For example, the visors on the hats (the part inside the fabric) are not yet from sustainable plastic. We’ve spent a ton of time trying to find a company that could provide this. No luck. So we’re in the process of developing our own from ocean plastic (plastic that’s in the ocean and can be deadly for our sea friends). We also want to get better with our packaging so that all parts of the shipment are as sustainable as possible.
As a new company, we won’t be able to do everything we want as quickly as we’d like. But we are relentlessly pushing forward, thinking about every detail of the hat and every person involved, to create the most sustainable, ethical, and best-looking hats on the planet.
It’s not the easiest path, but it’s the right one, and we’re proud to be on this journey with you.
Thanks for your support and thanks for looking awesome in your Storied Hats.