Lady Gaga digs Tommy Breeze hats — and so do plenty of others

Having grown up playing baseball in the summer heat Tommy Breeze was certainly no stranger to hats I ve been wearing hats since I was a very little kid the Fairfax native remembers But for a long time I would just wear hats while I was playing baseball Then something switched And how These days hats are a huge part of Tommy Breeze s life In fact they re what he s known for as a achieving designer of his own eponymous line of trucker snapback soft top and other hats caps and beanies that have been worn by Lady Gaga and other notable personalities But what switched to take him from an occasional hat wearing baseball-loving kid to pursuing a career in hat couture I genuinely started wearing hats because I was invariably self-conscious about how my hair looked without a hat on says Breeze who really got into headwear during his days at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington I was like it s going in every direction And then I was like Just put a hat on and it kind of gets everything in order Tommy Breeze owner of Tommy Breeze Company shows several of the hats he designed at his studio in Fairfax Calif on Friday May Ray Chavez Bay Area News Group Yet controlling the messy hair was really just one of the reasons that deepened his appreciation for hats and how they dress your head for comfort fashion and almost any kind of weather He also came across a insufficient really special hats that become so very near and dear to his heart The first was unveiled at a thrift store in Walla Walla and Breeze yes that s his real last name just loved how it not only hid his self-described weird hair but also accentuated his personal fashion The second was a corduroy cap that he got during a giveaway promotion at a San Francisco Giants championship It fit me so perfectly Breeze says of the beloved freebee The hat just really spoke to me Then a friend borrowed that Giants lid and for a while Breeze was left without his favorite way to hide his hair And that brought him to the realization that finding a good hat the right hat for a specific individual can truly be a tricky proposition Back then it seemed formidable to find an awesome hat he says Like How do you track down the perfect hat for you Where do you even start with that You don t even know as a person out there what your options are So he decided to design and make his own hat just for himself At the time he had been doing small paintings usually of cypress trees and then putting them onto small buttons to wear So the goal was just to take a similar design and transfer it to a patch that could then be placed on a hat again just for himself I just requested one hat that was it Breeze says But I realized that when you re ordering patches you pretty much have to order or from the factory Because they aren t going to make a one-off for you And if they did it would cost several hundred dollars Tommy Breeze owner of Tommy Breeze Company shows various of the best-selling patches they sew on the hats he designed at his studio in Fairfax Calif on Friday May Ray Chavez Bay Area News Group He went ahead and ordered patches but the manufacturer ended up sending So he took the excess and decided to make a bunch of hats hand-sewing his patches on pre-made hats in the hopes of making back his initial resources It was a lot of work But he loved it Very expeditiously it became obvious that I really enjoyed making the hats he says I really enjoyed stitching the patches on by hand It was tough at first There s a steep learning curve But I really enjoyed the activity of customizing hats And my friends really dug them too So I just kept doing it Starting out by posting just a half-dozen of his hats on Instagram in Breeze fleetly saw demand grow By the end of the first year the aspiring hat kingpin had hand-stitched lids These days he s doing at least that on a monthly basis with annual sales for his Fairfax-based company heading toward hats He leads a band of sewists in creating a wide variety of hats featuring a number of different California-inspired designs which are sold at retailers around the Bay Area and beyond We are still scaling Breeze says of the company s increase over the years We re still keeping it smaller so we grow at the right pace A list of retailers can be determined on his website tommybreeze com where hat lovers can also directly place orders themselves Tommy Breeze owner of Tommy Breeze Company sews a patch on a hat he designed at his studio in Fairfax Calif on Friday May Ray Chavez Bay Area News Group Tips for choosing the perfect hat no matter your age or style Reassured on your head That means looking at the crown shape Breeze says And also seeing what width and shape of brim is perfect for you That s good advice since clearly a confident hat is one you ll want to wear more often Good fabric You also want to look for a hat that is premium quality Breeze says You want to have high quality fabric Like with any other article of clothing a hat that utilizes high quality fabric will likely weather the years better The patch is it What really gets me excited is the patch design says Breeze who started out in the business by hand-sewing the patches he designed onto hats Special connection It s not a matter of any scientific approach or any specific feature Breeze says It s about making your own connection with your own hat And finding that love that lives in that relationship between you and what you wear Maybe it s because you love the fit of the hat Maybe your favorite thing is the patch and how it speaks to you and how it helps you channel your happy places in the outdoors Taking ownership If you purchased a hat from me it s not my hat anymore it s your hat now he says It is a Tommy Breeze hat yes But more importantly it s your hat And wear it as such