Traditional aguayo on a backstrap loom: the inspiration for our pattern, not how our cloth is made. Illustration.
From Pattern to Cap
Every cap starts as a length of woven cloth: 100% acrylic, woven by machine, with a pattern inspired by aguayo, the striped cloth of the Andes. From there the cloth is cut, sewn and embroidered in small batches, and the caps are made in Peru. Four steps, no shortcuts.
1. The cloth
The pattern is woven into the cloth, not printed on it, so the colour is in the thread. Narrow stripes, figured bands, colour that reads from across a street: that is what it takes from aguayo. Traditional aguayo is slow household cloth in the Andes; ours is woven by machine, and we do not blur the two.
2. Cutting the panels
A five-panel cap is five curved pieces plus a brim. The cloth is laid flat and the panels are chalked before they are cut, because the stripe has to be placed, not just cut. Each cap is cut from a different part of the cloth, so the pattern lands differently on every one. One of one. On the full-weave caps the front panel is chosen for the stripe that lands on it. On the twill and denim caps only the brim is cloth, so the brim gets the placement.
3. Sewing the five-panel
The panels are joined on an industrial machine, seams taped inside, a sweatband set, the brim stiffened and bound. The woven cloth is thick, so the seams are sewn slower than on a plain cotton cap and the needle is heavier. This is the step that decides whether a cap holds its shape in a year. Ours are sewn in small runs and checked before they ship.
4. Embroidering the chakana
Last, on most caps the front panel gets a chakana, the stepped Andean cross, in thread; the patch camp caps get a small woven Inpire patch instead. It is small on purpose. The cloth is the voice; the cross is the signature. It is embroidered, not printed, so it wears like the rest of the cap. Read what the symbol means on the chakana page.
What we do not do
We do not print an aguayo pattern onto plain fabric; the pattern is woven into the cloth. We do not dress the cloth up as something it is not: the woven cloth is 100% acrylic, the pattern is inspired by the aguayo, and the caps are made in Peru. See where the pattern comes from, the materials, and the caps themselves: full weave and camp caps.