When it comes to baseball caps New Era is the big daddy of all the companies that make them. They own the rights to the MLB franchise caps, which basically means they make THE baseball caps. They also manufacture the caps for proper sports, such as Premier League football and numerous other intellectual properties. Furthermore their technology goes into making other fashion brands baseball caps, especially around stretch fit options.
With all this in mind it would be irresponsible of me, as a hat connoisseur, to be unaware of their back catalogue. Making up this article are my recommendations from New Eras options. These are all picked from hats that I own in my personal collection.
All choices went through my taste checklist for hats, which I laid out in this article:
https://thehatfish.com/taste-checklist-for-hats/
There are some great positives to the New Era options, the primary one for me being the range of sizes they offer – in contrast to other brands. You will be hard pressed to find a New Era hat that doesn’t have a good fit for you, so long as you follow my general style advice and measure your head.
To measure your head: grab a tailor’s tape measure or piece of string, hold one end on your forehead, wrap it around your head over the top of your ears where a hat would sit and bring it back around to the forehead. That measurement in inches corresponds to hat size charts you will find when buying online. Just don’t pull the tape too tight or you will be buying hats that are also that tight.
Another positive for New Era is their quality control. Every cap I’ve bought off them has been consistently good quality and long lasting (you know, unless you mistreat them or throw them in the washing machine – please don’t do that).
39THIRTY In Grey
For men who want to wear baseball caps there are going to be some mandatory basics that should be in every collection. And one of those is a plain cap in light grey. This is where a New Era comes in clutch as they have the best plain grey baseball cap on the market. I don’t know what it is about light grey hats but for some reason caps in said colour are a rarity across the suppliers. The New Era Flag Grey 39THIRTY is a stretch fit option. I will always go for stretch fit as it provides the best rear closure for bald men, like myself. Honestly, this is one of best fitted and most comfortable hats I own. I do recommend for your basics that you choose comfortable options, as they will be your go-to caps more often than not.
NY Cap in Black/White
Ah the Yankee cap. There’s no way around it, this is the most iconic baseball cap in the whole of the New Era collection, and one of the best selling options they have on their site. I understand if you aren’t a huge fan of the New York Yankees, I personally don’t care about baseball so I don’t understand the rivalries. What I do understand is that this option is iconic and it’s so ubiquitous within street style that it has become more a fashion accessory than a sports brand.
I’m going to add the black/black option here as well. If you want a completely monotone hat then this is the option for you. Even the New Era logo on the side is changed to black which stands out less than the usual white flag. This is as understated as you can possibly go with their branded headwear.
LA Cap in Navy/White
And we come to the other iconic option in the New Era range and another one of their best sellers. The LA Dodgers cap, as with the Yankee cap, has also become ubiquitous within street style. I recommend going for the navy and white contrast hat. Not enough guys have a navy option in their collection and I think this is the best looking one available. Navy is a strong neutral colour I think men should use more often.
As with the Yankee cap you can also get a black/black option if navy isn’t something you are looking for. Again, this is a good option if your aim is branded but low key.
Final Thoughts – A Note On Branding
You will notice in my taste checklist article that I prefer to go with unbranded caps for most of my collection. With New Era you can’t get any hats that are completely unbranded, every New Era cap has the little New Era flag on the side. Although I caution against the pitfalls of branding in my taste checklist, I do wear branded caps. As a matter of fact, most of my collection is branded.
If the cap is branded, then the branding itself must be minimal and meet my other rules. For those that would prefer the most minimal branding New Era can offer the black/black options are the go-to.
New Era’s white flag (or mark of quality as they as they describe it) doesn’t fall foul of my standards. Additionally, two of these options are culturally iconic branding and this also passes my test for what a quality cap option should be.
So, these are the New Era baseball caps that I recommend every hat loving man should own in their collection. There are some more adventurous options in the catalogue I could recommend but for now I will keep it simple.
- Final note. If you want to go for adjustable over stretch fit with these then that is fine but make sure to get strap adjustable and not plastic adjustable.
Peace,
The Hatfish