19-year-old Dina’s European Championship Bucket Hat Goes Viral: Generates 200,000 Danish Kroner in Sales
A simple crochet pattern for a bucket hat in red and white turned out to be a great business venture for 19-year-old Dina Lea Bay from Vejle, Denmark. Coinciding with the European Football Championship, she designed a bucket hat as a tribute to the Danish national football team.
When Bay shared a video of the hat on her social media, it quickly went viral. To date, she has sold around 4,000 patterns of the hat, generating a revenue of approximately 200,000 Danish kroner (approximately 32,000 USD) from the crochet European Championship hat alone.
“Even though I run a business with various crochet patterns, I was surprised by how popular the red and white bucket hat became,” Bay said. “I was asked by Mayflower, the yarn company I collaborate with, if I wanted to make an European Championship hat. Before this, I had never been interested in sports, so I thought it was a fun challenge. It has exceeded all expectations.”
Several Danish celebrities have been spotted wearing Bay’s bucket hat on Instagram, including journalist and television host Thomas Skov Gaardsvig and musician Mads Langer. Bay also noticed people wearing her hats in the crowd while watching football matches. “It’s a wild feeling to see people wearing my designs,” she said.
Bay’s bucket hat pattern hit what’s known as a micro-trend, according to lifestyle expert and trend researcher Julia Lahme. “When we look at the current trend landscape, we can see a lot of handcrafting, and many of us want to express ourselves through handcrafting,” Lahme explained. “We are much more interested in handmade, personal and special items than mass-produced ones.”
Micro-trends, like the crocheted bucket hat, typically last two to three years and have great potential while they trend, said Lahme. The trend was evident at the Roskilde Festival, where many people wore homemade bucket hats with the same pattern or motif.
Bay has been crocheting since she was in third grade. She started her own online shop where she sells crochet patterns and crocheted bucket hats. The European Championship hat is just one of the many patterns she has designed.
Despite many of her patterns being bucket hats, Bay is not worried about the trend fading. “I’m not afraid of that. I’ll just come up with something new,” she said. “There are many other things you can make with crochet.” She already has a new project in mind: “I dream of writing a crochet book about moving away from home, because I have just moved out myself.”