TThe hottest accessory of the summer (and possibly the year) arrived Tuesday night with the first delivery of merchandise for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, just hours after the vice president announced the Minnesota governor as his running mate . Amid understated t-shirts and mugs in shades of navy blue and white at the official online store was a bold offering: a $40 union-made camouflage lumberjack cap with the campaign logo emblazoned in bright orange. The product description confidently declared it “America’s most iconic political hat,” a bold claim given how red MAGA hats have become synonymous with Donald Trump and his ideology.
According to a statement from the Harris-Walz campaign, within 24 hours of the hat drop, the campaign not only sold out of its initial supply, but also received thousands of pre-orders for the hat, worth nearly $1 million. The distinctive cap went viral almost instantly online, where social media users were quick to point out the similarities between Harris-Walz’s design and Gen Z pop star Chappell Roan’s wares. Roan offers his own trucker-style camouflage hat, embellished with the phrase “Midwestern Princess.” The hat’s popularity and its association with Roan were apparently triggered by a meme that compared the governor to the Missouri-born singeran online moment that recalled Harris’ meme-driven momentum this summer.
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Others online pointed to the camouflage hat that marked the zeitgeist. “This is the Bushwick x Los Feliz unity our nation needs,” wrote media personality Desus Nice on X (formerly Twitter) about the hat, nodding to the current popularity of hunting and fishing hats – a return of sorts to the early years trend of trucker hats—being used for street style as opposed to utility.
Despite the comparisons to Roan (Walz’s own Midwestern colleague turned to X to assess the hats’ similarities, writing, “Is this real?”) the Harris-Walz campaign, no stranger to a viral moment or a pop star’s endorsement, said in an email to TIME that the hat is a tribute to the governor’s practical personal style. Walz, a former teacher, football coach and avid hunter, is often seen wearing basic work clothes like Carhartts, t-shirts and a well-worn camouflage baseball cap, the latter of which he was wearing when he got the call from Harris asking him to be his running mate. And while the hat’s origin story is entirely convincing, its true allure lies in its diverse appeal to both outdoorsy Midwestern middle-aged parents and Gen Z fashionistas, a smart move. for a campaign that must speak to a broad swath of Americans in a very narrow way. race.
For Kjerstin Haugsby, a 33-year-old architecture student and mother of two in Minneapolis, the hat’s charm lies in its Midwestern sensibility, which she sees as a metaphor for what Walz brings to the ticket.
“The camouflage hat is the most Minnesotan thing,” says Haugsby, noting that he can’t wait to buy one. “We are a group of people who enjoy outdoor activities. It’s super unpretentious and not an expensive brand. I think it’s a great symbol of the Midwest and blue-collar people, middle America and the middle of the road.
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Haugsby says he finds it “hilarious and wonderful” that the hats have become so popular across the country, noting that while young people in coastal cities may be donning the hat for a fashion trend, there are many voters in older generations who they may be using it in a more practical sense. In X, a user by the identifier @benbo0526, wrote that he planned to wear his Harris-Walz hat to the shooting range to show support for the ticket.
“As a white guy with guns and an F-150, I’m buying this! And I’ll go to the field with it and so on, like I do with my OWL hat. (Old White Liberal).
And while the camouflage print, long associated with guns and the military, has often been associated with conservative politics, the hat, like Walz, is a reminder of the value of nuance. Walz calls himself “one of the best shooters in Congress” and used to receive an ‘A’ rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA). Now he’s a gun control advocate whose liberal policies as governor and advocacy for gun control policies following the 2018 Parkland shooting led the NRA to change his rating to ‘F.’
“The country has changed in this regard. We change. The situation has changed and I follow it as a leader,” Walz said in a 2018 interview with CBS Minnesota. “I am a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights to own firearms… But I also recognize the need for some commonsense changes on this issue. I reject the notion that it is one or the other. Those people who are responsible gun owners — it breaks their hearts every time you see one of these shootings.”
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That kind of duality is why Nora Deely, a 22-year-old audio engineer living in Chicago who recently purchased one of Roan’s trucker hats, thinks the camouflage hats are a big hit. Roan’s outrageous sartorial sensibility, which has become a key aspect of her personality, owes as much to her small-town roots as it does to drag queens and glam punk. His stylist, Genesis Webb, named Roan’s style as “Midwestern glamor trash.” While camouflage has seen its ups and downs as a fashion trend over the years, there’s no doubt that it fits into this amalgam of influences.
“Sometimes when I see camouflage, I think of people who might be more conservative,” says Deely, noting that as a fellow Midwesterner, she appreciates Roan using camouflage as part of her aesthetic. “So when I see queer artists like Chappell Roan, who’s from Missouri, or young people wearing camouflage, it feels like we’re reclaiming that.”
But for some, like Chris Mewes, a 38-year-old consultant from New York who plans to vote for Harris and who ordered one of the Harris-Walz hats, the issue isn’t that deep: “The camouflage just did the talking for me.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
