Why 101 Is One More Than 100: The Eastern Philosophy Reshaping the Hat Industry

Behind Foremost's private hat museum sits a bigger idea — the "101 Series," a philosophy-driven project built around hat culture heritage and intangible craftsmanship. Here's why 101, not 100, is the number driving it.

🔽 Quick Navigation

• 📌 99 Is Incomplete, 100 Is Too Absolute: The Philosophy Behind 101
• 📌 More Than a Project: Building a Global Cultural Ecosystem for Hats
• 📌 Saving What's Disappearing: Straw Weaving, Lacquer, Bamboo, and Lost Crafts
• 📌 Why 7,000 Museum Pieces Matter to the Whole Industry
• 📌 From Culture to Commerce: Festivals, Design Schools, and a Foundation
• 📌 An Open Invitation: Let's Build the Next 101 Together
• ❓FAQ

99 Is Incomplete, 100 Is Too Absolute: The Philosophy Behind 101

Most industries measure themselves in round numbers — 100 stores, 100 years, 100% growth. Foremost's founder, Jeffrey Sun, chose a different number for his life's cultural project, and the reasoning behind it says a lot about how the company thinks about hat culture heritage. In his own words, 99 remains incomplete, while 100 feels too absolute; 101 symbolizes transcendence beyond perfection — continuous rebirth, and endless creation, rather than a finished, closed collection.

It's a small piece of philosophy with real practical weight. A company that measured its cultural commitment in a fixed, round number would eventually declare it "done." Naming the project 101 builds an expectation of ongoing work directly into its identity — a detail worth understanding before looking at what the number actually holds.

More Than a Project: Building a Global Cultural Ecosystem for Hats

The 101 Series didn't start as a single initiative — it grew out of decades of collecting, traveling, and documenting hat-making traditions across dozens of countries. That accumulation became the foundation for what's now a genuinely multidimensional program:

• 101 poems dedicated to hat culture, giving literary and poetic voice to headwear
• "101 Hats," a published volume featuring original works from 69 leading designers worldwide
• Collaborations with 101 international artists, turning hats into a vehicle for contemporary artistic expression
• Partnerships with 101 masters of intangible cultural heritage, bringing lacquer art, mother-of-pearl inlay, bamboo weaving, and wood carving into modern millinery

The scope alone sets this apart from a typical brand-heritage campaign. Few manufacturers commit literary, design, fine art, and craft-preservation strands into a single cultural framework — and fewer still treat it as a long-term structure rather than a one-off marketing push.

Saving What's Disappearing: Straw Weaving, Lacquer, Bamboo, and Lost Crafts

Perhaps the most concrete branch of the 101 Series is its craft-preservation work. Jeffrey is currently researching and documenting 101 classic straw-hat weaving patterns, aiming to preserve handwoven techniques and the aesthetics of natural materials from around the world — work that connects directly to intangible craftsmanship as a category UNESCO and cultural bodies increasingly recognize as at risk.

That focus on natural, hand-worked materials isn't disconnected from how Foremost approaches its own production either — our eco-friendly hats collection and pieces like the organic cotton fisherman beanie reflect the same underlying respect for natural fiber and traditional construction that the 101 Series is built to document and preserve at a cultural level. The craft knowledge doesn't stay locked in a museum case — it feeds back into how the company thinks about material and technique in commercial production.

Why 7,000 Museum Pieces Matter to the Whole Industry

The physical anchor for all of this is the Foremost hat museum in Nantong — nearly 7,000 pieces spanning historical and contemporary hats, hat-making tools, lace, embroidery, and related cultural artifacts from both East and West. Roger Tredre, course leader of Fashion Communication at Central Saint Martins, described visiting it as "a big surprise, unexpected, unanticipated," calling it a journey through the extremes of human creativity. You can read his full account, along with the rest of the coverage, in the digital edition of the feature.

For the wider industry, a collection this size matters beyond one company's pride in its archive. It functions as a working reference for pattern history, regional weaving and embroidery techniques, and the evolution of headwear across cultures — the kind of primary-source material that individual designers and smaller manufacturers rarely have the resources to assemble on their own.

From Culture to Commerce: Festivals, Design Schools, and a Foundation

The 101 Series doesn't stop at collecting and documenting — it's built to actively connect people. Jeffrey also founded the "920 Hat Festival," aimed at creating a global platform for exchange, collaboration, and co-creation across the hat industry. Looking ahead, plans include a World Hat Industry Public Welfare Foundation to support emerging design talent and a dedicated museum for embroidery and lace, alongside consideration of hat design schools to train the next generation of the headwear workforce.

That progression — from private collection, to cultural documentation, to festival, to foundation and education — is a fairly unusual arc for a manufacturer to pursue. It reflects the underlying belief driving the whole project: that a healthy, sustainable industry needs shared infrastructure for culture and talent, not just competing supply chains. Our own sustainability commitments sit within that same logic — responsible production and cultural preservation are treated as connected goals rather than separate initiatives.

An Open Invitation: Let's Build the Next 101 Together

Jeffrey has expressed a specific hope for where this goes next: collaborating with 101 hat entrepreneurs worldwide, integrating global resources to respond rapidly to industry needs and empower the future of the international hat industry. That's a genuinely open invitation, not a closed membership list — it's addressed to designers, historians, craftspeople, and brands who see hats as more than a product category.