What's with these fleece beanies?

In recent years, there has been a huge influx of outdoor companies ditching traditional materials such as wool and hopping on the synthetic bandwagon. The star of this movement is polyester fleece. Most outdoorsy types have a fleece mid-layer that is their do-it-all. For me, this has been my Melanzana micro grid fleece (shout out CO homies). The reason why is because it’s breathable, soft, and has a great weight-to-warmth ratio. Personally, I have always gravitated to the sweet prints and designs of fleece layers and clothing. This is why I was so psyched when I started seeing fleece on top of people's domes. You can call me whatever you want, but I was actually pretty late to fleece beanies.

The past two years, I accidentally forced myself to take a mountain-life hiatus when I decided to go to college in Arizona. Last year, though, I made a much-needed trip back to Colorado for the Winter X-Games in Aspen. This was such a sick time, and I'll definitely write about this more later. While we were at the events, though, I saw a ton of people wearing these sick hats made of fleece, including some of the dudes from the Sickos YouTube channel. I went up and asked a couple people where they got them from, but legit, the best answer I got was: “Uh, I think I bought it from this guy online. I forgot his name.” Yeah, come on dude. This blew my mind.

So, after a weekend of being bummed that my knit beanie wasn’t as steezy as all the CSU bros around me, I went home and decided I could make a better hat. Not just a better-looking one, but a better-fitting and more durable one (I have a tendency to break or rip every piece of gear I get). I’ve got to say, too, that weekend in Aspen was mad cold. Even with full snow gear on, we were still shivering. It does make sense, though; we essentially didn’t move for 8 hours a day. That trip was more than fun, though—it was inspiring.

As soon as I got back to my dorm, I called up my sister and asked her to help me out. She had a sewing machine, and I had an idea, so we teamed up and started thinking of a name. Steezfish was born from that steez-filled weekend, and we are super psyched to give you all the best of the best to keep your dome warm this winter.

- Salem