BRIMMING OVER : Crumpled or Jeweled, Baseball Caps Are the Hats for All Seasons

Summer’s the time for wearing baseball caps, but this season the soft hats with the long bills are no longer just for taking out to the ballgame.

Baseball caps are everywhere, from the fashion runways of Milan to the streets of Los Angeles. Hollywood’s beautiful people--including Janet Jackson, Madonna and Eddie Murphy--are wearing baseball caps as symbols of their street-wise chic.

Contributing to baseball cap fever are the girls of summer--Madonna, Geena Davis and the other female players of “A League of Their Own.”

Once the caps were worn to advertise one’s loyalty to a beloved baseball team. Now they’re a fashion statement. Baseball caps account for 70% of all U.S. hat sales, reports C. Leon Sherman, CLS & Associates in Denver.

Designers have replaced the caps’ team logos with rhinestones, gold studs, sequins and charms. They’re making the caps out of every material, including leather and lace, gold lame and slick vinyls in primary colors.

In short, baseball caps are no longer uniform.

Martin Noriz, an Irvine hair stylist, frequently sports a baseball cap made of black leather.

“Baseball caps are real American,” he says. “I like the look of the rim.”

Noriz shops for unusual caps on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and in Orange County malls.

“I’ve seen them with everything from flowers to dinosaurs,” he says. “I’m attracted to the flashier ones, the ones that are a little bit out there.”

Erik O’Donnell, 20, of Huntington Beach, has a practical reason for liking baseball caps.

“You don’t have to do your hair,” he says.

Baseball caps are worn by people of all ages.

“I don’t think anyone looks ridiculous in a baseball cap,” says Ray Wills, vice president/men’s fashion director for Macy’s California and Bullock’s in San Francisco. “They look good on older people, middle-aged people and kids, although the kids like to wear their caps backward.”

Playful baseball caps for infants and children can be found at the Balboa Island Kids Clothing Co. The caps come festooned with tropical fish, multicolored polka dots, sailboats and a spotted cow print.

A big seller with the toddler set: caps with dinosaurs in such colors as hot pink, lime and orange, store owner Susan Hoffman says. Older children and teens prefer something less wild, such as caps made out of plaid flannel.

Rose LeDonne boutiques in Dana Point and Laguna Niguel carry romantic, even sexy baseball caps. There’s a see-through black lace cap and a white cotton one adorned with pink roses.

“Women have always loved baseball hats,” boutique owner Rose LeDonne says. “They used to borrow their husbands’ caps. Now that the hats are more feminine, they’re blowing out of here.”

The caps are anything but feminine at GHq men’s store in the Brea Mall, Westminster Mall, MainPlace/Santa Ana and South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa.

Young men want industrial-looking baseball caps, such as the black cap with a perforated metal plate on its brim, or the ‘hood-influenced “X” cap--a salute to Malcolm X, according to Alis Balandran, manager of the Costa Mesa store.

“Guys wear them with baggy jeans and a long ponytail pulled through the back,” Balandran says.

An excellent “Wayne’s World” cap is among the many campy baseball caps at the Village Hatter in Newport Center Fashion Island. One style comes in brightly colored stretch nylon so it fits tightly over the head like a swim cap, only with a brim. Some caps come with fake ponytails in back. Charlotte Russe stores in the Brea Mall, Westminster Mall, MainPlace/Santa Ana and South Coast Plaza have black or white caps that simply state: “NOT!”

Flashy baseball caps are favored at Giorgio Beverly Hills in South Coast Plaza. They come in fake leopard, dyed cotton or denim and are decorated with silver studs or multicolored cabochons. For the label-conscious, there’s a cap with the Giorgio crest and the store’s signature yellow and white stripes or a silk cap in a Giorgio-inspired print designed by Nicole Miller.

“Baseball caps are playful. It’s not the romantic straw-hat look,” says Marty Barrett, Giorgio boutique manager.

Caps with a homeboy look by Cross Colours are hot sellers at Bullock’s Men’s Store at South Coast Plaza. For street chic, young men can’t do better than a black baseball cap with the Cross Colours logo embroidered in yellow, red and green.

How did baseball caps evolve from a sporting goods item to, in Wills’ words, “one of the necessary items of street fashion?”

People first started wearing them on the street, he says. Designers, seeing messenger boys in New York City sporting the caps, caught on and turned the caps into high fashion.

“We saw it two years ago out of Europe, when baseball caps started popping out on runways,” Wills says. “Then the pretty people started wearing them, like Glenn Close and Eddie Murphy. But the street people were wearing them all along.

“They became so fashionable everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Ralph Lauren did them with longer bills,” he says. “It’s getting so that now people are coordinating them with their outfits.”

While the caps have an attitude, they’re also functional.

“They’re great. They make a statement and protect you from the sun,” Wills says.

“Wearing a baseball cap is easier than wearing a hat because you can just roll it up and put it in your pocket.”

Price tags on baseball caps are as all-American as baseball itself. They sell for anywhere from $2 for a plain white cotton cap at Target to $68 for a spotted faux leopard fur cap at Giorgio Beverly Hills. Most fall in the $12 to $25 range, making them practically recession-proof.

Small wonder Wills is betting that baseball caps will be around long after the boys and girls of summer have put away their bats.