Every week, FADER magazine tabs one of its employs to write about his or her favorite article of clothing or accessory. This week, Felipe Delerme writes about his New Era iridescent fitted New York Yankees cap, probably the ugliest thing I've seen since, probably, 1992. Delerme doesn't care, though. He loves his hat. This hat works for me for a couple of really simple reasons. It’s a Yankess cap and a perfect match for Jordans. Specifically, the “Aqua” VIII’s (which I never really liked), but also the “Grape” V’s, which I played myself in waiting to buy, only to incur a ridiculous limited-availability markup some months later. By itself, the cap is a bit more “Flashing Lights” than a lot of the others I own, but in all of its flamboyance, it’s still just a New York Yankee that matches my J’s.Delerme makes some good points, and it's obvious that he's serious about his fitted. So serious, in fact, that he's apparently willing to throw down about it, seemingly at a drop of the hat. Well, sort of.
A couple of weeks ago I saw this kid I know in the club and he told me he almost didn’t recognize me without a hat on. I should of slapped his ass for getting out of pocket like that but we been cool for a little while so I gave him a pass. But also, until recently I’ve probably worn a fitted almost every day outside of the two or three just after I get a haircut so in a way I guess he had a right.
But why this particular hat?
When the above cap first arrived at the office, immediately it reminded me of the infamous Cam’ron New Era. This came out back around the time Cam mentioned something about hiring a team of scientists to invent his own color and every other rapper was bragging about smoking the purple-est piff procurable. Side by side, the hats aren’t very much alike at all, but I’d like to imagine the purple-teal iridescence of my cap is what his team was working toward. Assuming, of course, that team wasn’t just a bunch of Dipset interns smoking weed and fucking around with the color palette in Illustrator to “piff out” the mixtape covers.
Oh, I see. His is not just a hat; it's a sartorial statement of political import, like Teva sandals or leather chaps, and not to be taken lightly.
I’ve fallen back on the lids a little this summer, but they’ve always served a greater purpose than just keeping my head warm. For people like myself, a fitted is just as much a flag, broadcasting an alliance of some kind (sport and otherwise), in ways the first baseball players probably never even imagined.
But the question remains, with whom does his allegiance lie? The Yankees, New Era or Marty McFly?
