Spike Lee's hat trick: the story of his iconic Yankees baseball cap
I always enjoy wearing baseball caps. I got my first when I was six or seven years old. All the kids had them. Back in the day it really wasn’t a fashion thing, but now people wear the hats and it has nothing to do with sports.
I have been wearing baseball cap brand New Era for 50 years, but it was the 1996 World Series that changed the game. I had a red down jacket that had Yankees written on it in script and I wanted my Yankees cap to match. I called New Era, the official cap of Major League Baseball that the players wear on the field, to see if they could make me one. I wanted the official, official one. Up to that point you could only get the hats in the kit colours – it was not done in Major League Baseball to make any other colourways.
New Era had to call the late, great Yankees’ owner, George Steinbrenner. He was a traditionalist; I didn’t know if he’d agree but I was hoping! I have never known why, but he did. New Era made it and I wore it to the World Series. The rest is history.
I had no notion of the impact it would have, but when friends saw me on television and said, “Where did you get that cap?” it gave me an inkling. Then all the teams wanted alternate colours, it was out of control. Now you can have every colour, it doesn’t even need to have anything to do with the original. Back in the day you would support a team and wear their colours. With this younger generation, they don’t necessarily go by the team, they go by the colours. You want to match your sneakers, you want to match everything else – it doesn’t matter what team it is they just want to match. I don’t understand that myself. I’m not wearing a team I don’t like, no matter what colour it comes in. Of course people can do what they want but I would never wear any logo, insignia, anything, that has to do with a team that I do not like, I’m just not going to do it.
I haven’t worn the red one for years. I’ve got nothing to wear it with. I wear the other New Era caps I’ve designed instead. In terms of my fashion in general, I don’t really say ‘let me dress fashionable’, I just dress how I dress. The big things for me are: wear something colourful and wear something comfortable. I don’t have to have Yankees or [basketball team] New York Knicks stuff on me all the time, but a lot of my clothes are orange and blue, the Knicks colours, I will admit to that.
Now, almost any place you go around the world, you’re going to see the interlocking N and Y for the Yankees; people might not even know much about baseball. Jay-Z had a lot to do with it, with his line: “I made the Yankees hat more famous than a Yankee can.” Rappers like to boast, but that’s my Brooklyn brother, so I’m not going to argue with that. It’s also because it’s New York City – the greatest city on earth in my opinion.
The limited edition Spike Lee x New Era collaborationlaunches this month;neweracap.co.uk.