Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Ambler Hats

A Really BIG, Totally Huge, Majorly Amazing  Announcement!!


Bohoknits is now designing and consulting for Ambler Hats. You will be seeing some Bohoknits designs peppered in their upcoming 2012 collection. Whether you are Canadian or American, odds are you've already seen their hats in your local outdoors store, MEC or REI.

I am super excited about this, so I want to talk a little bit about Ambler, because they are a fantastic company and I'm thrilled to be working with them and to be a part of their new collection (which will include some old Bohoknits faves as well as some brand new amazingness).

@ the Ambler offices wearing my Ambler hat! 




Ambler is based in Canmore, Alberta and was founded by a local man who began by sewing up fleece hats in his basement. Fast-forward 10 years and Ambler offers multiple lines of hats all over North America, including a machine-knit merino and the woolly, hand knit Himalayan line (which is where you will see some Bohoknits designs next year!).

The thing that impresses me most about Ambler is that the owners employ actual, responsible practices. Not only are they interesting people in their own right, but business-wise, it is important to them to buy local, they purchase carbon offsets for their shipping, and they employ women in Nepal to create their hand knit hats and even pay them a fair wage (imagine that!). I'm betting they also do things like recycle and come to full stops at stop signs.

Their marketing is also ingenious. The logo tags on their hats read: "Use your head." Good advice. Their facebook catch line is: "There's only one person like the person under your hat." Aw, so true. While checking out their website for the first time, I clicked on "FAQs" expecting standard questions about how their hats fit or where they source their materials. Instead, they answer the truly frequently asked questions: What is the meaning of life? and Why is the sky blue? (My mom taught me the answer to that one when I was little: a scattering of light rays off the blue end of the spectrum - thanks, Mom!) For the answer to the former, you will have to visit their website:
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