Zoptopz -- Building a better baseball cap

When Ron Schmelzer moved to Baltimore from Boston four years ago he was just a regular, if perceptive, IT kind of a guy. Two years ago, however, he had an observation that would change his life.

"I was running a technology advisory firm and a marketing firm, but as part of doing the market research I just noticed what was going on in baseball caps of all places," he says.

His great epiphany? Schmelzer noticed that many people were wearing baseball caps not so much because they wanted to show their support for a given sports team, but that the caps had become a hip fashion accessory.

While baseball caps had become a part of the fashion scene, spotted on the runways of urban designers from Tommy Hilfiger to Baby Phat and beyond, the head gear hadn't really changed or evolved in several decades.

"Prices had been steadily going up, but what they looked like hadn't really changed since the 1950s. It was the same old cap. New Era has long been the big gorilla in the marketplace and they have these caps called the 59/50s. They were literally invented in 1959. And nothing has really changed since then," Schmelzer explains.

Slight alterations have been made to the design � how the cap attaches to the bill, the direction it faces, and the size of the bill had increased � but no one had done anything to fundamentally alter the shape of the cap.

That's when Schmelzer had his second revelation.

"After doing some more research, I thought this might be a good opportunity. If people are going to pay $30 or $40 for a baseball cap, let's give them something unusual, something fashionable that's worth wearing."

The big idea

Not the kind of person to let a good idea go to waste, Schmelzer got to work. A year and a half later, Schmelzer and his team had done it. The results were a baseball cap with a radically altered brim.

"There are four designs in total: M, Wave, Crimp and Curl, names that should be kind of descriptive. They basically come from my own inspiration. We'd been looking at some designs and just drawing it out on a piece of paper. The key was balancing the craziness of the bill with its manufacturability. These designs had the best combination of things. They were the most visually striking, hats people could look at it and tell that it was really different, and had manufacturability which would keep the price reasonable."

"There are a lot of people designing for baseball caps, now. We're hoping to give them a new canvass for their design. They're limited right now to designing for the front of the cap and maybe the side and it kind leaks onto the brim. By giving them this other space, we hope it really takes off," he explains.

The Baltimore charm

The ZopTopzwebsite was launched in the October 2009 with little fanfare.

"We hadn't really told anyone. No one really knew anything about it. We had just been dealing with marketing folks. We pushed this out at the beginning of the year but the response has been pretty phenomenal."

Several great apparel brands have come out of Baltimore with Under Armour and 180s performance gear as the most recent examples. Schmelzer hopes that ZopTopz will be the next big brand to come from Charm City.

In February, Schmelzer took his caps to the Magic Clothing convention held in Las Vegas.

"We got a lot of interest, a few celebs that are hopefully going to endorse us. And it's going pretty good," he says.

Put a lid on it

He's focused on attracting the attention of the urban street chic, but says that he has had a strong response from pint-sized fashionistas.

"We originally thought that this would very much be an urban brand and we would be in stores that carry other urban products like skate shops. But it turns out that they are really big among 10 to 15 year old kids. They think it's cool. They're really into the cap. Also, older women in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Blind people are also attracted to the cap, I guess because it has a cool feel to it," he says.

Schmelzer's big break could come in August when he and his team travel to Los Angeles for the Teen Choice Awards.

"We're going to be in the swag tent. I'm not sure if it's before or after they win they award, but the celebs will come to the tent and they can just pick up a bunch of stuff. That's a big bet. We want them to be spotted in US Magazine wearing the cap," he says.

ZopTopz are sold at Cloud 9, a local clothing retailer, as well as online. Schmelzer is also making the rounds with a booth at Baltimore-area ethnic festivals.


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Walaika Haskins is managing editor of Bmore Media.