At first, the love of hats at George Mason High School was impromptu and shown sporadically. But this all changed near the beginning of the 2018 school year, when the Hat Club was formed.

Shaped around a laidback enjoyment of hats, the purpose of this club was to wear hats on Fridays and put together giveaways.  Club enrollment expanded over all four grades. And at the end of this past school year, this club had 86 members, about 10% of the entire school’s population. Evidently, hats are more popular, populous, and interesting at George Mason than many people might think.   

This love of hats expanded outside of school, with many students from the Hat Club in possession of dozens of hats in their own personal collections. To find out more information about some of these collections, I contacted two members of the club and some of the most avid hat wearers at Mason, club founder Hunter Hicks, and sophomore member Rex Crespin.  Their hat collections are substantial, with a combined total of 71 hats between them. 

It’s not just them with this deep love of hats.  The Hat Club wrote to companies for hats, promising free publicity for the companies, and then gave away the hats in a raffle to members of this club. The club 3-D printed membership cards onto card stock and acrylic material for all members, and provided Hat Club stickers to each one. This love of hats, along with the perks the club leadership offered, led to a fully functioning club with different levels of leadership including an executive board.  

Many students have dozens of hats in their possession that aren’t even seen by other students. Crespin said he “only wears 10 of [his] hats on a regular basis,” only 29 percent of his total collection. His total hat collection amounts to almost three dozen hats, two dozen of which are not worn. Hicks said the exact same thing, stating that he only wears 10 of his hats, neglecting the other 26.

The hats are relatively similar to each other, too. Of Crespin’s 35 hats, only two of them are bucket hats, meaning that the rest have preformed front panels, a signature of a baseball or trucker hats. Hicks said the same thing, stating, “my collection mostly consists of baseball and trucker hats, because those can be subtle and blend in better.”

What’s the true root of this hat craze? “They make my morning routine much less time consuming; I don’t need to mess with my hair at all,” Hicks said.  “I also like hats because they are a great accessory and add a bit of pop to my aesthetic that day.” 

Crespin said about half of these hats come as souvenirs, and half as gifts for his birthday and Christmas. “Whenever I go somewhere I try to buy a hat from there as a souvenir,” Hicks added.  

And judging by the size of their hat collections, it seems that Hicks and Crespin have gone to a lot of places, for it really does add up.