People sometimes assume a new cap comes together in a few weeks. The honest answer is months. The Paso Fino, a cap we're launching soon, started as a photo I took of a horse in Colombia at my cousin's wedding back in February. We're closing in on August now and the hat is just about ready. Roughly six months, photo to shelf. This post is everything that happens inside those months, with the Paso Fino as the running example, because it's the one I've been living with all year.
The photo is the fast part
Every design we've released starts with a moment I actually witnessed. In February that was a horse at my cousin's wedding in Colombia. I saw it, thought it looked like something, and took the picture. That part costs nothing and takes a second. The horse happened to be a Paso Fino, a breed Colombia is famous for, so the name came attached to the moment.
Then the slower questions begin. Would this actually look good on a hat? I sit with it, show it to people around me, get opinions. If I still believe in it after that, it goes to my artist to be painted.
Why the painting almost never matches the photo exactly
I'd love every painting to be one to one with the original picture. It rarely works out that way, and usually we go through a couple of variations before it's right. A person's face can't be in the design. A brand's logo can't be in it either. Some details just don't translate from a photograph to a painting, and sometimes the color balance of the real scene looks off once it's isolated on its own.
So we adjust. Maybe we crop the picture a certain way. Maybe we add an element, like flowers on one side, to balance the composition and make it pop. Then I'm back to showing people and gathering opinions before anything moves forward.
Then comes a long list of decisions at the manufacturer
Once the painting is settled, it goes to my manufacturer, and this is where the decisions really stack up. What colors am I making the hat in? How many colorways do I even try at first? What details go on the hat, and is there going to be a phrase on it? If there are special details, what exact colors are those?
We get a few digital mockups made, and I show those around again and take some time to figure out what actually looks good. It takes as long as it takes to feel right.
Samples take about a month, and then I live with them
When the mockups feel close, we place a sample order, usually one to three different styles. Those take about a month to get made and shipped to me. And when they arrive, the real test starts, because a hat on a screen and a hat on your head are two different things.
I give it time to breathe. I wear the samples around, show them to friends, and watch for the organic reactions, the ones people give before they remember to be polite. Did the colors end up working together in person? Did the details land the way I imagined? The Paso Fino is also built a little differently than anything we've done before, which raised its own question of whether that construction even makes sense for us. You only find that out by holding the thing.
A good idea can restart the whole clock
Here's the part nobody warns you about: the iterations don't stop cleanly. With the Paso Fino, a friend of mine pointed out that the photo was taken in Colombia and said it would be cool to put a Colombian flag on it. He was right. It also meant going back for another digital sample, then another physical sample, then another wait for it to reach me so I could judge it in person.
Only once I finally decided I liked it could I place the final order. What that flag idea turned into, you'll see at launch.
One hat never ships alone
While all of this is happening, I'm not working on one hat. I'm developing around five other designs at the same time, each at its own stage of paintings and mockups and samples. And because I place the full production order all together, the Paso Fino can't ship until the other designs are ready too. That's a big part of why months pass between our drops.
What it costs before anyone can buy it
The big financial commitment is the final order. But every step before it costs real money too. The painting is expensive, each sample is expensive, and shipping each sample to me is expensive. Every iteration comes out of my pocket long before a single customer sees the hat. The way I think about it: you have to enjoy this, and you have to be willing to spend.
And then comes the actual gamble. Once the hat goes out, are people going to buy it? Am I going to make the money back on this design? There's no way to know in advance. You trust yourself, you let it fly, and you hope for the best. When people ask why a cap from a small brand costs $65, this is a big piece of the answer. You're paying for six months of decisions and the risk I took on one design.
The work you'll never see
Not everything survives the process. With my current manufacturer, bad samples basically don't happen anymore. When I was first launching the company and trying different manufacturers, there were plenty of bad ones and plenty of bad samples, but these days what comes back is on point.
What still happens is quieter. Sometimes I pay for a painting and never move forward with it, usually because it didn't feel inspiring enough, and that money is simply gone. And there's a hat right now that came back well made but felt too simple to me. We're not a big enough brand to put out a plain hat and let the name carry it. I'm still trying to give it more oomph, and if I can't, I probably won't release it at all.
The hardest call right now, though, is the amounts. How many of each design do I make, and how many styles do I run? I want to do everything, and I have to be smart enough to pace myself instead.
There is no template
I think some people picture this like the print sites where you upload a company logo onto a blank cap and check out. That process exists, and it's very straightforward, but it has nothing to do with what we make. There is no template here. The size of each element, the positioning, the font, the color, the angle, the combination of all of it, the materials, the specific color codes, because a small shift in shade reads completely differently on a hat. Every one of those is my decision, and I have no proof any of it will work beyond trusting my gut.
I call it a blind process. It's a leap of faith every single time. I wouldn't say it's incredibly difficult, and honestly I enjoy it, especially with the team I have around me. But it is never straightforward and never a predetermined path.
So that's what six months buys
A photo at a wedding in February. A painting, then a couple more versions of it. A pile of decisions at the manufacturer, a round of digital mockups, a month waiting on physical samples, weeks of wearing them and watching faces, one friend's idea that sent the whole thing back a lap, and a final order that had to wait for five other designs to catch up. The Paso Fino will land in the newest drops soon, and now you'll know what sits behind it.
If you want to see what this process looks like when it's finished, the Côte baseball cap traveled the same road from a real moment to a shelf. And if you're curious what a few years of these six-month gambles adds up to, the full collection is all of them in one place.