The creator demonstrates a two-step process for distressing a new hat. First, he shows various techniques for physically distressing the hat using scissors and tweezers to create frays and holes on the bill, crown, and back strap. Second, he dyes the hat with black dye and then strategically washes and scrubs it to create a faded, worn-in, gradient look, before showing the final result after a machine wash.
Post caption
How to distress a hat to give it that beautifully aged and worn in look! Hat from @basketcase.gallery The process is pretty much two steps: 1. Distress with scissors 2. Dye and fade It might seem counterintuitive, but one of the most frequent ways I “fade” a hat is by dying it darker and washing away the dye to create some really cool gradients! Ultimately, there’s no right or wrong way to do this. Whatever you think looks cool! #mensfashion #DIY #distressed #vintagefashion #customhat
Transcript
Here's how to take a brand new hat and distress it no it has that beautifully worn in look. Step one will actually be distressing, and step two will be dyeing and fading. Distressing your hat is pretty simple. You just take one end of your scissors and go back and forth over the same area. Eventually, after enough times shaving up the sides, sides, you'll get that beautifully frayed look. And for me, I usually do one bigger section and then a couple smaller knots everywhere else. Then to get this distressed look on the crown of your hat, you're gonna cut two small parallel lines. Then with tweezers, pull out the perpendicular threads bit by bit until they're all gone. In the end, you'll be left with threads all going in the same direction. For the back of the hat, I like to cut along the edge of the opening. And then using the same technique we did on the bill, just go in and fray up those edges a little bit more. I'll do the same with the adjustment strap. And here's the end of step one with our chewed up distressed hat. Now step two, dyeing and fading. This is our inspiration. Take half a cup of hot water, two tablespoons of Rit dye, and then with a paintbrush or a foam brush, go in and generously paint the brim of your hat. And as soon as it's covered, go over to your sink and immediately start rinsing it off with cold water. This is gonna start to give it that faded look. And since the center of a brim is usually what sees the most fading, I'm going to take a bristled sponge and scrub away that center area even more. And then to continue that gradient from dark to light, from the edges of the hat to the brim, I'm gonna go back and paint the edges of hat again. Wash it in cold water, and now you can really see how that gradient fade looks. Next, we're gonna do the exact same thing, but now we're painting the crown of the hat. Go in and wash it with cold water. I'm really blasting that top center part to give it a gradient again, and here's what we're working with. Throw it in the cold water wash, and here's the final result of your distressed and faded hat. Anyway, thanks for watching and I'll talk to y'all tomorrow.
