It started after a round of golf, not a business plan.
My mate Richie, who owns Rat Bag Store, and I had just finished 18 at North Shore Golf Club. Pints in hand, table outside overlooking the course, talking about nothing in particular. Then Richie asked the question that started all of this:
"When are you going to start something?"
I've always liked hats. Not in a collector way, in the way a hat is the one thing you wear every single day without thinking twice about it. It's often the first thing people notice. The billboard for your fit before anything else gets a say.
Golf has its own look, and the big brands do it well, Titleist, Callaway, TaylorMade. You wear them to play, then take them off when you leave. That's fine. Style's subjective.
But I wanted something different: a hat I could wear to the course, grab a coffee after, and keep wearing for the rest of the day. Something that looked as right on the first tee as it did walking through the city.
That idea came from two places. Football taught me discipline and what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself. Skating taught me style, the way small details (how something fits, how it moves) change how confident you feel doing anything. Golf turned out to run on the exact same logic: tiny, repeated details, and one thing off means everything else has to compensate.
Streetwear is already finding its way onto the course. Golf is getting less about tradition, more about personality. Avenu is built for that shift.
I brought the idea to Sid, and together we built Avenu Studio's first cap around one rule: clean, versatile, and made to be lived in, not just played in.
Here's to good rounds, long days, late drives, and everything in between.
— Joel