Wear a hat over a hoodie & freak it on these lames
PLUS slept-on Asics Gel Kayano alternatives, ill Sony bootlegs, and swaggy UK minimalism on sale
Welcome to Blackbird Spyplane, where we’ve got fall weather on the brain. O yes, autumn is right around the corner, which means it’s time to wrap yr brain around the following ironclad autumn-themed Spyplane Holy Decree:
Wearing a hat — especially a bucket hat — over a hoodie is the wave !!
“Blackbird Spyplane,” we hear you saying. “You are so good at newsletters to a degree that is continually humbling & inspiring. This ‘hat over hoodie’ thing has never occurred to me, but it’s so obviously correct — why, though?”
It’s hard to pinpoint. Part of it has to do with questions of gorpy “utility,” i.e. getting some sun protection on yr face on a chillier day, and/or securing a FLAPPY-A** hood against some windy gusts. Part of it is about putting a little surprise pop of texture and color at the very top of a fit, where no one’s expecting it. And part of it is simply down to Fibonacci-style ineffables of pleasing geometry, whereby it just goes hard…
Hitting them with the “hat over hoody” (H.O.H.) is a move I’ve been deploying in spicier states of mind for a couple years now. If you’ve been a Spyfriend for a minute you’ve likely seen me on I.G. rocking my beloved orange cotton-linen bucket hat not just atop hooded sweatshirts (below left) but even a hooded puffer (below right):
I never thought to ratify the dopeness of H.O.H. into a Holy Decree, though, until the other day, when Erin and I caught a 40th anniversary screening of tha god John Carpenter’s 1982 slapper The Thing, during which tha god Kurt Russell’s H.O.H. swag (below) is on a hundred thousand trillion, minimum — god d*mn !!
I saw this years ago when I was too young to appreciate the full import of this fit. Big Kurt is the picture of “physics-defying sauce.”
Eagle-eyed Spyfriends will detect that, rather than a bucket hat, Kurt is going extra turbo with it and rocking an enormous-brimmed Campaign Hat over his hoodie. But this is unfadeable ‘80s-era Kurt Russell we’re talking about, and very very few of us are operating on his level — swapping in a bucket hat dials things down from Mach 8+ to a more comfortable, yet still plenty advanced, Mach 3+.
Kurt’s not alone … Other H.O.H. experimentalists include Cynthia Nixon on Sex and the City rocking a bucket hat over a windbreaker hood (and rounding it out with some phenomenal jumbo pants) … some random guy I found who reviews hiking gear clamping down his puffer hood with a bucket hat … and, in classic envelope-pushing “spherical hysterical lyrical miracle” style, Eminem wearing a baseball cap under a hood under a bucket hat and saying f**k you to anyone who doesn’t think it works (we don’t think it works, but you know we salute the unorthodox attempt.)
BTW the other day we found 3 remaining sz. small Spyplane “Fibonacci Nights” tees — these are the last 3 of this style, when they’re gone that’s that forever, and we put them in the SpyStore for $18 to move ‘em into homes, here!
ALSO in today’s sletter we’ve also got:
SICK slept-on Asics Gel Kayano alternatives
Dope limited-edition bootleg SONY (!) merch.
BUT FIRST —
Beautiful swaggy unisex minimalist UK-made clothes including an all-time great sweater & sweater-vest — at cut-rate prices baby …