Javier Reta Gallego

Maleza hatmakers is a hat workshop, formed by Myrte Sara Huyts and Javier Reta Gallego, in which we design and build one by one timeless and genderless hats for bespoke orders, one-of-a-kind and limited editions.

We are always looking for new stories that give meaning to shapes and vice versa, that is why we understand headgear not only as the manufacture of a garment but as a creative act beyond mere functionality.

“Maleza” (“weeds” in English) refers to the wild, the spontaneous, something impossible to tame. We fall in love with the primitive, and we constantly revisit the origins of form to find the germ of our most contemporary designs. We move away from the solemnity that has frozen the hat in time for so long, and instead, we aim at imitating nature in its processes by rescuing, redesigning and reusing in a cyclical way.

My business objectives are:

• To achieve absolute circularity in a big part of our production.
• To stay small, artisan and self-sufficient.
• To achieve 100% traceability in all our components and to get all these components to have the lowest carbon footprint possible.

My learnings from the Crafting Business Programme:

We have to open up, innovate and collaborate.

The most important thing is to know your differential value, to know what makes your value proposition unique compared to your competition. You should spend quite some time thinking and rethinking. You shouldn’t only analyze your product, but also understand where your ideas come from, analyzing your own roots.

We all have something that sets us apart, a value to contribute to our business. To discover what this is, we must analyze it with a microscope while we visualize ourselves in the future through a large telescope.

My 5 top tips that I have learnt on this journey:

1. Exploit to the maximum your differential value.
2. The financial part within a company has the same importance as the creative part.
3. If spending money helps you to earn more money, then spend loads!
4. You need a solid, well-built brand with visual coherence.
5. “Storytelling” is a vital part of your branding.