Creating hats as an act of resistance

Ruslan Baginskiy's hat brand was founded in 2015 with a very specific goal: to put headwear centre stage, to make it once again an essential part of men's and women's wardrobes, drawing inspiration from a past when an accessory was enough to determine a person's profession, social class and even cultural affiliation. What started as a small family business in Lviv, a small town in western Ukraine, has in seven years managed to attract celebrities such as Madonna, Bella and Gigi Hadid, Kaia Gerber, Taylor Swift, Pamela Anderson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Anna Dello Russo, Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys, whom Baginskiy affectionately calls RB family, and sell its products on the main international e-commerce sites: Browns, Farfetch, Moda Operandi, Mytheresa. The products range from beanies, bucket, sailor, gambler and cowboy hats made of straw, crochet, satin and wool to scarves and shawls with houndstooth patterns decorated with safety pins, monograms, beads and piercings. «Accessories are often a means of self-expression, they are the bright accent that sets the mood, sometimes the inspiration for a start, sometimes the finishing touch that shapes personal style. I like the way hats change the general silhouette, the way they enhance people’s characters and often open up new things within» Ruslan tells us as he and his team return from a turbulent trip from Paris to Lviv, because of the war that has been ravaging the country for a year.

When I ask him when his passion for accessories began, Ruslan immediately refers to his family, who are now also his team: «My mother and grandmother were always hat lovers and the object fascinated me since childhood. When I started working as a stylist I wanted to include hats all the time, but didn’t find many available, so I started creating my own.» After 10 years as a stylist, Baginskiy decided to fill the gap in the market himself. He got carried away with the process of designing and making hats and traditional production techniques. Inspired by art, Ukrainian national costumes, family photos from the archives and old fashion shoots, he boldly experiments with the shapes of the past to create contemporary hats: comfortable, practical and fashionable. Among the best-selling products there's the Baker Boy, inspired by «vintage French train conductor headgear, and then a few years later I found a picture of my mom wearing a baker boy cap in the 90s. It seems she’s also always part of my inspiration. I started reworking the shape with the way I see it and it has become our signature that comes back every season in a new interpretation.»

Ruslan Baginskiy Hats is now an established international brand, but the designer always emphasises his Ukrainian heritage, especially at a time when his home country's identity is under attack. The first presentation of the couture collection at the Crillon Hotel was dedicated to the local nature, local crafts and traditional wedding jewellery of Western Ukraine. The company supports local production so that each hat of the brand is "Made in Ukraine" and is characterized by sustainability and an identity that strongly influences the brand, from the design of the products to the modus operandi with which they are made: «It is an integral part of me and what the brand stands for. My brother works with me, my mother is in charge of production, but the whole team feels like a family at the moment, especially after the move from Kyiv to Lviv and the difficult times we had to go through individually and as a team during the last year of total war.» Indeed, despite the conflict, the tight schedule for the release of the brand and the production continues with great effort, because «creation keeps us human while war tries to dehumanize us. It's a way of resisting, of fighting, of continuing to live.»