New Era makes headway

Before parachuting into China's robust consumer market, America's largest cap maker has got its gear ready. And, there are no green caps in the kit.

New Era Cap, the Buffalo-based family-owned business spanning four generations - which is cautiously dipping its toes in its new market - is acutely conscious of the fact that "wearing a green hat" in Chinese culture means a cuckold.

Daniel Broderick, the managing director of New Era's Asia-Pacific region, takes these things seriously. "We can't sell green caps. You know why," he told the South China Morning Post . "But they do like black caps even in oppressive heat."

There are other distinctive features in the Chinese market that Broderick has observed. One of these is that the cap size is "a lot smaller".

New Era began its journey in Buffalo in the US as E. Koch Cap 93 years ago when Ehrhardt Koch, a German immigrant, set up the company with US$1,000 borrowed from his sister and a fellow worker.

In its first few years of business, it churned out 60,000 Gatsby-style caps in the 1920s. Its operations have since scaled up by leaps and bounds. Last year, it produced 40 million caps.