Whether you’re hiking one of Colorado’s 14ers or boating in Chatfield State Park, the sun hat is a vital piece of the sun blocking arsenal.
As an avid outdoorsman, Damien Henning had a penchant for putting sun hats through their paces. He preferred the hats to frequent sunscreen application, despite the hat's relatively short life; the brims would droop or crease, and they couldn’t hold up against the wind.
So, he began sewing copper cables into the brims of his hats. The more rigid brims would withstand wind, rain and frequent packing, unlike the traditional hats on the market.
“I was designing something and I didn’t even realize I was doing it,” Henning told Colorado Inno. “I never thought about marketing it and selling it.”
Years and many homemade iterations after his first prototype, Henning decided to dive head (hat) first into designing the Shape Flexer sunhat.
In June 2017, Henning launched the original Shape Flexer sunhat on Kickstarter with much fanfare, raising nearly $250,000 from more than 4,000 backers.
Despite that initial success, Henning continued to innovate the product. He said the one piece of feedback that stuck with him most from the first Shape Flexer was the comments on its weight.
“If anyone had a problem with the hat, 90 percent of the time it was because of the weight,” he said.
So, he went back to the drawing board to create his second hat, the Shape Flexer Lite.
“How can I make a light version of this hat? I can make the brim smaller, but that defeats the purpose,” he recalled thinking. “I can make the foam thinner, but then it won’t float. The copper causes weight, but it’ll break if I replace it.”
The Shape Flexer Lite has all of the features of the original, but only weighs 60 percent as much. Henning replaced the plastic coated copper that makes up the hat’s frame with a much lighter foam coated wire. While the foam coated wire is slightly less durable than the copper, Henning said customers can purchase replacement wires and swap out the old one using a simple zipper.
The hat can still withstand 40 mph winds and heavy rain without compromising the structure and is machine washable. It also comes with a deployable neck cape for extra protection and a zip off crown to allow for hair to be worn outside the hat.
The Shape Flexer Lite is selling for $41 on Kickstarter, though that special is likely to sell out soon. Otherwise, the hat retails for $45.
So far, the Shape Flexer Lite has raised $122,000 from 2,196 backers with 24 days remaining in the campaign.
Henning is focused on completing the campaign and fulfilling orders in the near term, but has his eyes on further product innovation once he’s free. He wants to create a lightweight golf hat version with a slightly smaller brim and fewer bells and whistles.
“I’m more focused on having a few products that are really good and that will last a long time than I am on having a long line of products,” he said.
