The FRASSATI Collection: Giving Catholics Style-Forward Hat Options While Making the Ascent to Holiness

FRASSATI Collection Origin Story

The path to the FRASSATI hat collection started when GBHC founder, Jacob Coatney, was in middle school. His parents gave him a bifold plaque (pictured below) and a book about Pier Giorgio Frassati. This simple act of parental love, working to inspire their son to emulate a holy young man led to an ever growing devotion and pursuit for the heights of virtue and holiness.  Jacob describes this progression as follows:

It was a very simple and condensed book with some biographical highlights of his life and devotion. I was struck by the fact that a potential saint could be characterized as a jokester (as the book described some of the pranks he would pull on friends) yet be so highly regarded for his charity and devout faith. Since then, I find Frassati to be the saint I desire to emulate most.

I love St. Teresa of Avila’s interior wisdom, St. Maximilian Kolbe’s sacrificial love, JPII’s heart for the New Evangelization, St. Ignatius’s deduction of practical spiritual theology. Yet Pier Giorgio's extraordinary virtue in the ordinary setting of a lay person make him the most approachable and relatable model for my own life.

In high school my interest in emulating him was so strong that I made the phrase “verso l’alto” my signature that automatically attached to every text message I sent. At the same time that I was learning a little bit about Frassati, I was quickly becoming an avid outdoorsman. From a young age I loved hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, camping, etc. and so my interest in St. Pier Giorgio was just fueled all the more.

I think I found the idea of going “to the heights” so captivating because of man’s longing for something higher, and the physical/natural reveal and point to the supernatural. 

There have been many “heights” to summit in my life, and now that I have kids I want to instill in them a similar determination to reach the summit and accomplish the goal. I am not much of a technical climber, but in 2012, I climbed Mt. Elbert in Colorado while still suffering from a bout of food poisoning. I also climbed Mt. Greys with a 40lb steel rock bar for a trail conservation project. 

For the last couple of years I've managed to summit a mountain in Montana after dealing with chronic pain in my knees for years. All of these experiences and others aren’t the most impressive feats of outdoor adventure, but their impact on my spiritual life and pursuit of virtue has been invaluable.

When we grow in physical determination, we are practicing and training for the spiritual front. Simultaneously, God’s power, goodness, and love are all the more apparent in these settings. Obviously Frassati’s primary goal was sanctity and imitating Christ, and that’s no small mountain. We need all the practice in climbing heights we can get.

Our Hat Product Strategy

The personal influence that St. Pier Giorgio has on Jacob influenced the GBHC product strategy, with two of the foundational lines of hats being FRASSATI collection hats: VERSO L'ALTO and THE HEIGHTS. 

GBHC recognized that there was a huge disconnect between the hat options available to Catholics, and the styles relevant to them. 

Because there are so many different types of people with a devotion to St. Pier Giorgio, we drew several different stylistic variations using the phrase Verso l’alto. GBHC developed a whole collection based on it, and will increase the options over time as well.

We created options that lean rugged, other that lean more hip, and even some that lean more retro. We wanted to make a hat for all types of people with an affinity for the outdoors and a devotion to St. Pier Giorgio. Jacob describes the variety vision as follows: 

So if you lived in a van for the Summer and woke up under the mountain you’d climb that day, or were a weekend warrior, or if you were a super rugged outdoorsmen, or a hip mountain-hiking mom, or if you lost your breath 10 steps from the parking lot or ran all the way to the summit, you’d have a hat that best fit you. Heck, even the mountain and rock climbers have an option by putting a sticker on their helmet. 

Starting the GBHC brand was itself a whole series of peaks and valleys, its own mountain range. And we still draw inspiration from the note St. Pier Giorgio Frassati wrote on the back of a photo from his last climb.