Kangol in Hip-Hop: The Rise of a British Hat Brand

Kangol (Кэнгол in Russian) is a British brand that produces headwear. The brand's logo, featuring an Australian kangaroo, is one of the most recognizable in the world.

The founder of Kangol was Jacob Henryk Spreiregen, a Polish-born Jew. Jacob was born in 1893 in Warsaw, at that time part of the Russian Empire. Before the outbreak of World War I, Spreiregen left Poland and moved to France. There, the young man changed his name to the French version, becoming Jacques.

Later, Spreiregen went to Great Britain, where he served for a time in the medical corps of the British Army during WWI. After that, he returned to France for a few years, where he began exporting Basque berets to Britain, where they were not yet produced.

In the 1980s, a force of nature intervened in the brand's plans: hip-hop.

Adherents of this new culture didn't care about the target audience that European marketers had chosen for the brand.

One of the phenomena of hip-hop is that African-American youth successfully adapted many typically "white" brands for themselves, forever changing their public perception.

Of course, "adaptation" is a very gentle term; it was more like a moral "nationalization" of the brand.

For a while, the company had no idea what to do about the fact that the brand in the US had become associated with a new and somewhat marginal culture.

Evidence of this can be found in old music videos where Kangol logos were blurred out because the company's management wasn't sure such promotion would be beneficial for the brand.

By the mid-1980s, the company changed its approach, deciding to take control of the situation and began working with this new audience.

In 1983, the kangaroo logo was developed.

The word "Kangol" sounds similar to "kangaroo," so for consumer convenience, they decided to create this logo.

Of course, the brand has no connection to Australia — and never did; it's purely a marketing move.

In 1987, LL Cool J released the album "Bigger and Deffer," on the cover of which he is depicted wearing a Bermuda Casual sun hat. It's worth noting that Kangol headwear, especially the bucket hats, became an integral part of the image of popular groups and artists of the time, such as Run DMC, Slick Rick, Grandmaster Flash, and many others.

The irony is that the Bermuda Casual sun hat is based on the headwear of British colonialists.

To be honest, LL Cool J wasn't original in his look; there is plenty of evidence that he bit (copied) his style from MC Shan.

However, because LL Cool J was the first commercially successful hip-hop artist of his era, with music videos in rotation on TV and albums selling well, the credit for popularizing Kangol goes to him.

As a result, in 1989, Kangol sold 1.3 million (!) headwear pieces in the US market alone.

In the 1980s, hip-hop was still a marginal genre.

Among rap fans, the 1990s are often called the "golden era," not only because of the huge number of hits recorded but also because the genre broke into television and radio and gradually became the most popular music genre.

Along with its "wearer," Kangol accessories achieved iconic status and a prominent place in popular culture.

Top figures of the genre, such as Nas (in the "Halftime" video), Eric B & Rakim (in the "Juice" video), 2Pac (in the film "Bullet"), and many many others, forever immortalized the image of a rapper in a Kangol hat.

But still, the biggest trendsetter for Kangol, and especially for the 504 model, was Notorious BIG, whose photos are hard to find without this staple of new street fashion.

In 1997, Kangol posted its best commercial result ever, ending the year with a net profit of £60 million.

In the 2000s, the company suffered losses, then was bought by Bollman Hat Company, the oldest and largest American headwear manufacturer. To recover from the crisis, the company had to take unpopular measures. Production of 90% of its range was moved to Southeast Asia, and the original staff was reduced to 33 people.

The company's focus shifted to the Asian market, primarily Japan and South Korea.

In the mid-2000s, a new vibrant segment of global fashion began to emerge: streetwear.

Kangol started to try its hand in this field.

In 2009, Eminem released the music video for "Beautiful," which has garnered 371 million views on YouTube.

In this video, he appears publicly for the first time in a Cotton Twill Army Cap, a model that would become his signature.

In 2016, the brand launched the global project Kangol Radio, which brought together about 30 selected radio stations of various genres.

Information taken from www.kangolstore.ru
https://wiki.wildberries.ru/brands/kangol