WG Distressed Hat with Vintage Esso Tiger Patch

Description

Each hat is handcrafted and customized with a distressed look. A vintage patch is then personally chosen by Sam Wyatt to be placed on each individual baseball cap. The final product is a one-of-a-kind hat that is made with the love and attention that only a handcrafted item can have.

Esso first used the tiger in its advertising in the early days of branded petrol which followed the end of rationing after the Second World War. Now, as we look back on the evolution of the image, it’s easy to see how the changes in the tiger, some subtle, others not quite so, have enabled the image to reflect different times and different values.

This first representation spoke of the new-found optimism after the years of shortage that came in the wake of World War II. It gave an identifiable face to a product where differentiation between the various suppliers was not always easy.

In the next phase of the tiger’s existence, he assumed the aura of a cartoon superhero, contrasting humorously with the fashion at the time for baffling – and not always reliable – scientific improvements to the performance of petrol. “Put a tiger in your tank” became one of the most famous campaigns in advertising history, complete with merchandised ‘comical’ tiger tail to fix around the petrol cap along with the bumper-sticker proclaiming ‘I’ve got a tiger in my tank’. An astonishing 2,500,000 tails were sold.