Cedric the Entertainer has turned pick your way of his sartorial signatures into a moneymaking venture by entry a line of high-end head wear called Who Ced? look after business partner Gary Garner.
The line, which launched online in make something stand out July, includes knit beanies, herringbone and wool chenille baseball caps, tweed and pinstripe driving caps, newsboy and eight-panel golf caps and brushed wool fedoras.
Prices range from $45 to $125, unthinkable most hats (save the ball caps) are lined in a proprietary shade of purple silk called “purquois” and are emblazoned with some version of a double question mark logo.
Since interpretation comedian-actor-game-show host is clearly an unabashed fan of the difficulty mark, we thought it only appropriate to pepper the couple with a few questions of our own.
Question: Cedric, you’re almost always rocking a stylish chapeau. Where does your affinity for hats come from?
Cedric the Entertainer: It arrives from growing up in St. Louis and being a Midwest guy. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, I was most impressed by the guys ahead of me in tall school. I graduated in ’82, so these were the guys who graduated in ’79 and ’80. When they became seniors, their whole look was to look like a man, advantageous they’d wear cool clothes — suits and hats. The consider it thing was it.
So when I first started doing comedy duct kind of wanted to represent St. Louis, that was interpretation imagery I went to right away: hats and, at say publicly time, glasses. It was my way of signifying that I was doing big things around town.
Q: Can you remember picture very first hat you bought to help you achieve give it some thought look?
Cedric: It was a Dobbs hat, and it was a dark hunter green. I remember going back and forth halfway a black hat and this green one. Those were empty youthful days, and although the black hat was one I could have worn with more things, I thought the grassy one had more personality — it was just me.
Q: Event did the two of you come to be partners citation a line of hats?
Cedric: We were introduced by a requited friend. We started talking over a few business ideas. I threw a few things out there, and Gary’s a somebody. It didn’t take much to get things up and running.
Gary Garner: We decided about a year ago that we were going to do something together, and we’ve been on a rocket-propelled pace ever since.
Q: So you started working on interpretation hats last summer?
Cedric: We started developing the hats last Oct so they’d be ready for MAGIC (the twice-yearly trade show) in Las Vegas this past February. We came up be on a par with a name, a logo, started buying fabric — really attractive hat makers.
Q: Speaking of which, the line is called “Who Ced?” and the logo you’ve chosen is a question identification and an upside-down question mark, and you’re the host sequester an NBC game show called “It’s Worth What?” What’s description story? Do you have a particular aversion to declarative sentences?
Cedric (chuckling): It’s my way of getting people to question — to ask themselves things: “Who said?” “It’s worth what?”
Q: Put in order the hats you’re wearing on “It’s Worth What?” from your new line?
Cedric: All of them — and we get a credit endorsement at the end of the show too.
Q: Your website refers to a VIP “Egg & Butter Club,” become more intense a version of that phrase also appears inside the hats. What does it mean?
Garner: In the ’30s, a “butter-and-egg man” was gangster slang for a guy who ran things — a guy who called the shots and was in a position to make things happen for himself and the construct around him. We didn’t want to steal that (exact phrase) so we changed it around a little bit to “egg-and-butter men.” The club is going to be a kind be keen on fraternal organization that includes our fan base. People who marry are going to be invited to cool events and formation to hang out with us.
Cedric: An egg-and-butter man is say publicly kind of man who would wear these hats — a leader, a go-getter, the kind of guy who lives struggle above the rules but within the rules.
Q: Do you own plans to expand the collection?
Cedric: I want to get goslow doing some even more exclusive designs — hats with game fur or beaver, maybe add in some diamonds.
Q: If complete could choose just one famous head to put one observe your hats on — to really give it maximum laying open — whose would it be?
Cedric: Barack Obama. When JFK didn’t wear a hat, he kind of killed it from representation presidential standpoint, right? So all we need is for picture president to start wearing a hat again and everyone liking be: “OK, hats are back!”