Kangol (2)

I first posted on KANGOL in April, 2009, starting with "KANGOL is a bit of a funny one..." and indeed, it is.

The short history of KANGOL, and it's founder Jacob Spreiregen, can be found here. It's an interesting history in many ways; one of them being the survival of the brand. Over the decades KANGOL saw many low's, but somehow always managed to get on top of it again, often by being adopted by some celebrity at the right time (LL Cool J, Samuel L. Jackson, etc).

These days the rights are held by US company Bollman Headwear and KANGOL is owned by Sports World, which didn't do the company much good in the sense of staying true to it's heritage and workers conditions. 

The original factory in Cumbria is closed now (turned into a warehouse with a fraction of the original employees employed) and all hats are made overseas. 
For a time, KANGOL berets were made in Taiwan, which resulted in a dislike by beret aficionados (poor quality felt and overall finishing - read the comments below my first post), but now I have managed to get my hands on a lot of KANGOL Monty® berets that are actually very nice in both comfort and quality.

The Monty® features the embroidered Kangol wordmark on the left hand side and is trimmed with a faux leather band. And available at a very competitive price @ $ 47.50 in Black, "Storm" and Red.