i really hate myself for this but I feel the need to confess:
despite having praised Scandinavia's contribution to world fashion in a recent column, I've since been seduced by the dark side. And no, I'm not talking about SuperDry. I mean America.
It's not those perennial fashion faves the white T-shirt, the biker jacket and the jeans that have got me. It's not the buttoned-down, Ivy League look either. It's worse than that, though leagues are involved. Without even the excuse of a white rabbit to chase I've fallen down the NFL and MLB rabbit holes and boy, are they deep. Their postage and packing rates are pretty steep too.
If the acronyms mean nothing, you don't watch enough American sport on late-night telly. They stand for National Football League and Major League Baseball. More particularly they stand for a North America-wide set of multimillion-dollar sports franchises whose teams have bewitching names - here be Giants, Jets, Pirates and Angels - and merchandise in mesmerising, Tellytubby-bright colours that exert an almost narcotic appeal. You want baseball caps, T-shirts, hoodies or "knits", as the Yanks call woollen hats? They've got them all. For a generic term I call it beanie porn and I've spent the last few days gorging on it.
I'm not alone. Whether you believe rapper Jay-Z's boast that he made the New York Yankees cap more famous than the team itself, it's true baseball caps are everywhere now. This is a boon for Buffalo-based hat makers New Era, which supplies the MLB, and means a whole generation of British consumers are now getting to grips with terms like 59fifty, 39thirty and 9forty, which are all various models of hat (the first, which is like a bowler hat with a peak, is the one you're most likely to see on a rapper or an Urban Outfitters till jockey).
Meanwhile, Philadelphia-based Mitchell & Ness are the go-to-guys for all your NFL needs. They also supply merchandising for the NHL (ice hockey) and MBA (basketball) franchises.
The fun bit after perusing the online stores is choosing your teams. Basketball's a no-brainer - Mormons and Miles Davis? It has to be Utah Jazz - and I'm veering towards the preposterously-named Nashville Predators for ice hockey partly as their head coach is called Barry Trotz but mostly as their online shop offers a Nashville Predators cowboy hat. Baseball's easy too as I spent a few childhood summers in Texas and have actually seen the Houston Astros play.
The NFL is trickier. I've plumped for the Pittsburgh Steelers for two reasons. One, there is no sporting franchise with a more manly name. Two, when I do get around to buying a beanie, theirs are the colours least likely to be misconstrued by drunk neds on their way home from the football. They play in black, white and gold: the worst I can be mistaken for is a Livingston fan.
So go Steelers! Go Predators! Go Astros and Jazz! And go FedEx, UPS and Parcel Force too!
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