A run of steady growth has hat maker Flexfit LLC slated to move its West Coast operations from Fullerton to a larger facility in Brea in coming months.
Flexfit bills itself as one of the largest vendors of custom and private-label headwear in the world. It primarily wholesales baseball cap-style hats to 150 street wear and action-sports apparel brands, including Nike, Puma and Adidas, as well as Orange County companies such as Costa Mesa-based Hurley International LLC, Stussy Inc. in Irvine, Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver Inc. and Oakley Inc. in Foothill Ranch.
Flexfit has about $100 million in annual revenue, according to Vice President Brian Yang, who oversees the company’s Orange County operations and about 35 employees here. Flexfit has another office and some 30 employees in New York, where it was founded in the 1970s by Thomas Cho, who currently serves as president.
“We’re a 40-year-old company, and we’ve been expanding all these years,” Yang said, adding that the company expanded “even in 2008.” That’s when Flexfit opened its Fullerton facility to target the California market just as the last recession took hold.
“Now it has come to the point that our warehouse and office are not big enough to accommodate our operations because we have more inventory and are hiring more,” Yang said.
Flexfit will take up about 54,000 square feet at its new facility, about a 20% increase from its current office.
“The move to Brea depends on the current tenant there, and I think they are moving out around the end of March,” Yang said. “And then we expect to take about two months to renovate. What we’re trying to do is—it’s a whole project. It’s not going to be done in a month or two. For instance, we’re trying to put a hat museum there featuring the history of the company.”
Yang said Brea caught the company’s attention largely because the city is “more business friendly,” and the company will still be able to operate “close to our major clients that are in Orange County.”
Flexfit is affiliated with Seoul, Korea-based hat manufacturer Yupoong Inc., which is run by Cho’s brother. Yupoong had hat sales of about $140 million in 2012, the latest figure available.
“Flexfit doesn’t carry hats from any other manufacturer [besides] Yupoong,” Yang said. “For Flexfit, there is no manufacturing here locally, but there is a trend that people are looking for ‘made in U.S.A.’ products. So it’s on our agenda to add a production line or two in our facility.”
