Most Labor Day weekends, the interesting stuff is somewhere else. Not this year. Ohio has two of the biggest things happening anywhere in the country over the same three days, at opposite ends of the state, and both of them are the kind of thing you remember by where you were standing.
At the north end, Cleveland turns its lakefront into a runway. At the south end, Cincinnati puts up the largest fireworks show it has staged in fifty years of trying. We made five patches for the weekend — three for the lakefront, two for the river. Here they are.
Cleveland: three days of jets over Lake Erie
Burke Lakefront Airport sits right on the water downtown, which is what makes Cleveland's air show different from most. There is no drive out to a field somewhere. The aircraft come in low over Lake Erie with the skyline behind them, and the whole shoreline — the pier, the museums, the parking decks, boats anchored offshore — becomes the grandstand. September 5 through 7 this year, with the Navy's demonstration squadron headlining and NASA's Glenn Research Center out on the ramp.
It is a genuinely loud, genuinely local thing. People plan around it. Three designs felt right.
The copper jet
This one is a custom contour cut — no border, no frame, no badge around it. The patch is die-cut exactly to the outline of the aircraft, so what sits on the front panel is a jet and nothing else. The material is antique copper, with the panel lines darkened and the raised edges of the wings polished back to a shine.
Copper was a deliberate choice over the obvious chrome. Warm metal reads better against the darker colorways, and it gives the whole thing a slightly older, riveted-aluminum feeling that suits an air show with sixty years of history behind it. The Cleveland Lakefront Jet Trucker Hat comes in five Richardson 112 colorways plus a ponytail-opening Infinity Charlie in Dusty Rose.
Shop the Cleveland Lakefront Jet Trucker Hat →
The formation hexagon
The moment everyone actually waits for is the formation pass — the aircraft coming through in tight delta with the contrails drawn out straight behind them. That is what this one is: a hexagon patch in matte black carbon-fiber weave, with the formation climbing away from a flat Lake Erie horizon in inlaid silver line work.
Carbon fiber is the least shiny thing in our material range and that is the point. It stays dark and matte on a dark cap, so the silver line work is doing all the talking. The Cleveland Lakefront Formation Trucker Hat is the most understated of the three, and probably the one you would wear when the air show is over.
Shop the Cleveland Lakefront Formation Trucker Hat →
The gold banner
The third one goes the other way entirely. A wide, low banner ribbon in gold-tone metal with swallowtail ends, a jet climbing up off the scroll, and CLEVELAND LAKEFRONT running across it. It is the biggest of the three on the cap by some margin — roughly four inches across, where the other two sit closer to two and a half.
Wide-and-low patches need that extra size or they look like an afterthought stuck on a panel. At full width this one reads like a nameplate. The Cleveland Lakefront Ribbon Trucker Hat is the loudest hat in this drop, and it is meant to be.
Shop the Cleveland Lakefront Ribbon Trucker Hat →
Cincinnati: fifty years of fireworks on the Ohio River
Two hundred and fifty miles south, Cincinnati has been closing out the summer with fireworks over the Ohio River for half a century. The fiftieth is the biggest the city has ever put up, and the changes are structural rather than just bigger.
There is a second barge west of the bridge this year, doubling the launches coming off the water. Rooftops around the basin fire back, so instead of watching a show in front of you, you are standing inside one. And for the first time in forty years the program includes shells sourced from Japan. Sunday, September 6, with the riverfront filling up from mid-afternoon.
The cherry riverboat
Everyone draws the fireworks. We wanted the river instead. This is a custom contour cut of a paddlewheel riverboat — twin stacks, tiered decks, sternwheel at the back — die-cut to the silhouette of the boat with no border at all, in cherry hardwood with the detail laser-engraved into the grain.
Cherry runs warm and reddish, which is a long way from the metal patches in the rest of this drop, and the boat shape is wide enough that it gets sized up the same way the gold banner does. The Cincinnati Riverboat Trucker Hat is the one that will still make sense in five years, when nobody remembers which anniversary it was.
Shop the Cincinnati Riverboat Trucker Hat →
The leather shield
And this is the one that actually marks the anniversary. A shield crest in tan vegetable-tanned leather with a stitched edge just inside the outline, a burst fanning out above the water, and the suspension bridge spanning underneath it. CINCINNATI across the top, 50TH YEAR at the point.
Leather takes a deboss beautifully and it ages, which is the right medium for something with a number on it. The Cincinnati Fireworks Trucker Hat is the souvenir of the five — the one that says which year you were there.
Shop the Cincinnati Fireworks Trucker Hat →
The whole weekend, in five hats
Nine shapes and materials went into the drafts for this drop and these five made it through. Every one is made to order on an adjustable snapback, in five Richardson 112 colorways plus a ponytail-opening Infinity Charlie in Dusty Rose.
- Cleveland Lakefront Jet Trucker Hat — contour-cut jet in antique copper
- Cleveland Lakefront Formation Trucker Hat — hexagon in matte carbon fiber
- Cleveland Lakefront Ribbon Trucker Hat — banner ribbon in gold-tone metal
- Cincinnati Riverboat Trucker Hat — contour-cut paddlewheel in cherry hardwood
- Cincinnati Fireworks Trucker Hat — shield crest in tan leather
North end or south end, it is a good weekend to be in Ohio.
Share:
Lake Superior's Aurora, Rendered in Steel and Carbon Fiber
Marshall Canyon's Bear Family Made It Out — and Onto a Hat