Veloce Hats Interview by D’Marco Brown
Fitted hats have been a staple in urban fashion for many years now, but there’s a new hat designer by the name of Cameron who wants some of that attention with his uniquely crafted headwear. Last week, the ILLSOCIETY team sat down with the creator & designer of Veloce Hats at LMU where he attends school for European studies while running his business. 20 yr old Cameron Picardi has already landed his brand in multiple stores across the country and in Japan. The name of his line is pronounced (ve-lo-chay) which means “Fast” in Italian. When you see his fresh take on a classic accessory, the name makes complete sense.
Hey Cameron, thanks so much for sitting down with us to talk about your line. First off just tell us how you came up with the idea to design hats instead of apparel.
Well it was more out of a necessity than anything else. I was actually looking for a fun summer type of hat a couple of years to wear at the Coachella Festival, and couldn’t find anything other than the basic snap back or fitted hats that are out there on the market. So I just decided to come up with something new and fresh to wear instead and it actually took off.
Cool, so what’s the meaning of the name Veloce?
My mother is Italian so I grew up knowing some of the basic words and Veloce has always sounded really cool to me. It means fast, and when you look at the design of my hats it completely embodies the name. It’s a slick design with a 90’s feel to it, and the bright colors remind me of cars. So it was perfect.
Has living in L.A influenced your design aesthetic in any way?
I mean I guess you could say my hats have a beach vibe to them, which of course Los Angeles is known for, with neon colors being a big trend in apparel these last couple of years it would look as though that’s where I got the idea for the color scheme. But I’ve always leaned towards bright colors in my personal style rather than muted and soft colors. So I wanted to make the hats something I would always want to wear by making most of the hats a very loud color!
If you could have any person that you admire in entertainment or any other profession to be the face of your line, who would it be?
I don’t know I mean Zac Efron was spotted wearing my hat a couple of months ago on the set of a television show he was doing. So that’s a pretty sick start as far as branching into the celebrity world. My friend actually sent me the pic of him and I didn’t even realize he was wearing my hat until I read the caption. It was such an exhilarating feeling to know he chose something I designed to wear without me giving it to him or anything. But to answer your question there’s no one in particular I would like. If someone known enjoys the hat then that’s great, and if they don’t then fuck em!
Great philosophy my man. Would you ever think to do an apparel line in the future?
Absolutely, I wanted to wait until the hats made a little name for themselves first. So many brands now a days dive right into making everything they possibly can without the proper brand recognition. I didn’t want to make everything at once and not have people recognize the name. Now I feel we’ve built some momentum, to where I can make a shirt and people will actually appreciate it and know what we’re all about!
Smart thinking. So you just got back from the Magic Trade show in Las Vegas, what was that experience like?
It went really well, we showed for three days and actually picked up 14 new stores in the process; a department store in Canada, three new ones in Japan, an Australian distributor, a store in Geneva Switzerland and a couple more; so we’re pretty stocked. I had a blast so I’m looking forward to heading out there again, in August for the next show.
That’s great man! Congrats on the new accounts! I saw online that you teamed up with the clothing line “Once Youth” to do a promo video for your brands, and it ended up being a big hit online. How did that collaboration come about?
I actually went to Westmont College in Santa Barbara my freshman year with Asia, who is the designer for that line and we became close friends. I told her if she ever wanted to collaborate on anything, I’d be more than happy to. I noticed that our brands look really well together; so we came up with the idea to shoot a really simple and care free video. We shot it at the Sepulveda dam & there were a couple of actresses in there as well as Stacy Dash’s son Austin, who I’m really close with. It ended up turning out really well and it seemed to garner us more attention, which was the whole purpose of doing it.
Where would you like to see your brand go within the next year?
Just be able to have our brand in many more locations, to where the consumer has better greater access to our stuff. The hardest part about this business is getting your product in stores, so that’s the biggest deal when you get into stores that everyone knows about. We’re also going to release our next collection this year, which looks a lot different from the “Noir” collection that is out now. There’s all new colors, stitching, and no more “Veloce” writing under the bill of the hat, instead there’s a skull. I’m excited to see how everyone receives it. We’re also going to be releasing shirts in the future. Gotta keep working hard and see where it takes me.
I see your going to be an even busier man than you already are. Hard work seems to have paid off so far so keep doing your thing! What’s the best way for people to check out your hats?
Just go to VeloceHats.com and we have our store on there. Also to follow our journey we have our twitter, facebook and youtube links on there as well. Summertime we tend to sell a lot of hats so get them while they’re hot!(laughing out loud)
Well thank you so much man for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us about your hats. Can’t wait to see what the Veloce Brand has in store for next season! You probably have some homework to catch up on so we’ll let you get back to it!
(laughing out loud) thanks dude. And anytime!
-D’Marco Brown
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