The BIG Announcement Is Finally Here...
Hats enclosed!
If you can recall, a few months ago… I teased you with a *big* announcement. After a series of delays, I’m finally ready to share what that 6-month old announcement is!
I teamed up with my friend Jimmy Lambert of Okaicos (I wrote about him in this issue) to bring you some limited edition caps with my favorite cocktails on them: the spritz and the martini.
Yes, that’s right — I’m selling hats!
I adored Jimmy’s ethos when I met him in Turks & Caicos; then when I told him about my idea for cocktail baseball caps, his enthusiasm to jump in and help me make my vision happen was beyond my wildest dreams. So now, after about a year in the making, the hats are finally ready!
The hats will be ready to ship in two weeks so I’m including a pre-order link below.
There are only a limited number of hats that I have available stateside so don’t wait!
But I’m a writer, why did I do this?
I’ve been sitting on this idea for awhile but as someone who already runs my own business, adding another facet to that in the realm of e-commerce seemed unnecessarily daunting. Jimmy was so quick to tell me to do it though, I felt like I said ‘yes’ before I even realized what I signed up for. I’m grateful for that, though, because of the prototypes I’ve been testing over the past few months, the response has been overwhelmingly positive from complete strangers! In the airport, people would stop me to tell me they liked my hat and ask where it was from. ‘It’s mine,’ I’d exclaim! That feeling propelled me.
Back to the original why – I’ve always loved tiny details and minimalism. This is what I looked for in hats and amidst the masses of branded hats I’ve collected from trips over the years, the ones I wore most were the classic colors with one word, shape or design on them. As I entered the drinks space more professionally, I thought it would be fun to rock a hat with an outline of a martini on it. I couldn’t find one, so I made one. That first prototype was scratched as it was too minimal, but my idea eventually evolved to the dirty martini accented with olives that’s currently on my navy hats.
The idea progressed from there. When we realized we were pushing into a summer launch, we narrowed down the scope from a bunch of different drinks to just martini and spritzes (because if you follow my work, you know I believe the spritz isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon).
Basically, this project is a fusion of my worlds: travel and drinks, from city (martini) to seaside (spritz).
I really hope you love them and rock them. And if you do, then I really hope you’ll share them! Send me your pics here, tag me on Instagram @jilliandara and @okaicos… who knows where we’ll go from here!
As always, thank you for your unwavering support. And special thanks to my partner on this, Jimmy!
XO
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Great idea! You go girl!