I probably have about 300 hats, and I was disappointed with this one.
One of the pitfalls of buying hats online is you can't inspect them and pick the best example. And if you get one you're unhappy with and return it, there's no guarantee the replacement won't be worse.
In this case, I judged L.L. Bean's reputation for quality would ensure I didn't get a substandard product. I wanted the hat because of that quality reputation, and wanted to wear it with casual attire.
Unfortunately, the body and bill on this one weren't sewed on straight. If the logo and writing on the front were centered on your forehead, the bill would be crooked to the side, and vice versa; if the bill was centered on your head, the logo would be off to the side.
Because of this I couldn't wear it as planned, and had to relegate it to the work-hat pile... something to wear while working in the yard and getting filthy.
I should've gone ahead and just sent it back for an exchange; but as I pointed out, was worried I'd get one even worse. By the time I'd changed my mind and really wanted to get another one, I figured it'd been too long to exchange it.
It is comfortable; I just can't wear it in public, so L.L. Bean isn't even getting the advertisement benefit from the hat... not that they'd want to use this particular hat as an example of their products anyway. Guess I'm actually doing them a favor keeping this one out of the public eye.
I bought one of these caps a couple of years ago and liked it a lot. However, I just bought a couple more and the style of the cap has changed for the worse. The old style cap was a low profile cap, but the new cap is too tall and does not look as good. I know this is not my imagination because I measured the new cap and compared it to my old cap. The new cap is about 1/2 inch taller than the old one.
I do not know if the change in the fit of the cap was on purpose or was instead due to poor quality control, but either way the new poor fitting caps are going back to Bean!
