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Mike from Longshot wrote this nice piece for us about our idea for him to utilise our off cuts, give it a read...
Once upon a time not long ago, when people wore pyjamas and lived life slow.
No, no, no…wait, sorry, that’s Slick Rick and sounds more like these weird days than one day late last year when Good Measure slid into my DMs.
Now, here’s a little background. I’d been aware of Good Measure for years and had often contemplated getting in touch and seeing if there was a chance of working with any off-cuts they might have. Something always stopped me from reaching out but it’s clear now I should have just bitten the bullet. So (although it’s a little early for a ’the moral of this story is…’) the moral of this story is if you have an idea for working with someone that you think would be great, just get in touch and say hello. The worst that can happen is they don’t reply but if they do…
Back to the story. The DM floated the idea of Long Shot making up a few hats from Good Measure's production excess. For each batch of sweats that GM produces there is an amount of fabric, generally small pieces, left unused after the cutting process. Most times these small pieces are considered useless and end up in the factories waste. Now, I’m guessing here, but as GM control and commission every part of the process, from yarn to finished product, there must be a certain emotional attachment to even these small pieces of UK made, premium jersey. Dumping them seems wrong on many levels so they reached out to me. This all happened before ’The Great Pandemic’ so I was able to hop on a train and visit Good Measure Towers to discuss how it might work. After a couple of hours drinking coffee and chatting Kimono blocks and BTEC National Diplomas the Long Shot Good Measure Experiment was agreed upon. Once GM had collected the excess from their pattern cutters I would make up a sample to see how the jersey worked in hat form and we’d go from there.
A week later it was time to pick up the fabric and despite being savagely attacked by a wild dog guarding the Good Measure gold, I came away with my life and a large box of 330gsm loopback jersey. Two days later I was back at GM Towers with a sample that, quite frankly, surprised us all. Jersey makes for a really good bucket hat, it was like a Summer holiday in hat form. The soft, supple fabric sits nicely on your head and folds away without crumpling or losing shape. The weight of the jersey is accentuated by the top stitching on the brim giving a grooved, tactile appearance.
Now, everybody knows that three is the magic number and Meat Loaf reckons two out of three ain’t bad. But we weren’t aiming for ‘not bad’, we were heading straight to GOOD. We had fantastic fabric and masterful millinery, we just needed that third element to really bring out the magic. As is often the case, inspiration was that special magic sprinkle we required and fortunately, if you keep your eyes and ears open, inspiration is all around. Now, I have had low-res screen shots of Guillaume Schmidt of Patta on my computer for the last four or five years.
In the grainy, blurred images he is wearing a bucket hat of unclear origin but something about the shape has always fascinated me and the time had come for me to work up my own version. Eight sample patterns later I had it, and as I planned to name the style ‘Gee’ it seemed only polite to send one to Mr Schmidt in Amsterdam and get his blessing.
A couple of days followed with me refreshing Royal Mail’s Track & Trace page before I saw it had been received. Gee messaged that evening and gave the hat his blessing. Made up with the fabric and shape he said he was honoured to lend his name to the style. We in turn are honoured to make it and to make use of Good Measure’s incredible jersey off cuts that deserve to have a full and stylish life just like their sweatshirt shaped siblings.
And so ends this literary love-in, just time to say, people are nice. If you have the inkling to get in touch with some one it’s easier these days than it ever has been, so bite the bullet, reach out and say hello. You never know where it might lead.