Reference Desk

What is the trucker hat with the winged eyeball?

Two panels separate Von Dutch marks, the flying eyeball and a stitched oval script patch, from any trucker hat's foam front, mesh back and snap closure, and note that this identifies the design only, not a real hat from a copy; below, a median ask of $42.50 for Von Dutch hats against $18 for other trucker hats, last verified 10 September 2026. — The flying eyeball and the oval script patch are the brand while the foam front and mesh back are any trucker hat, and when last verified on 10 September 2026 Von Dutch hats asked a median $42.50 against $18 for other trucker hats.Illustration: LinkToLooks

It is a Von Dutch trucker hat. The winged eyeball is the flying eyeball, a motif associated with Kenneth Howard, the pinstriper who worked as Von Dutch and died in 1992. The hat itself was designed by Christian Audigier, hired by the brand in 2002, who took the shape from mid-century Americana such as Marlon Brando's cap in The Wild One.

The other mark is the oval patch: a stitched oval carrying Von Dutch in a script hand, sometimes with ORIGINALS underneath, on a foam front with a plastic mesh back.

What makes it a trucker hat and not a baseball cap

The construction is specific and it predates the fashion by thirty years. A trucker hat has a stiff foam front panel above the bill and plastic mesh across the back and sides, with a snap closure. The foam stands the crown up taller than a cotton baseball cap. The style began in the 1970s as a giveaway from American feed and farming-supply companies, which is why it is also called a gimme cap or a feed cap.

Who has owned the name

Period	Holder	Note
to 1992	Kenneth Howard	Pinstriper and Kustom Kulture artist; sold the name once, to Steve Kafka, for $5,000
1990s	Ed Boswell	Sold Von Dutch patches at Los Angeles art shows under rights from Howard's daughters
1996	Mike Cassell and Bobby Vaughn	Bought the trademark; launched Von Dutch Originals
2002-2003	Christian Audigier as designer	Designs the trucker hat; sales peak above $33 million in 2003
2009	Groupe Royer S.A.	Repurchased the brand
2024	White Space Group	Bought the global rights

One thing a buyer should know rather than discover later: Howard, the man the brand is named for, was an open antisemite and admirer of Nazi Germany, in his own words in a 1992 letter that was leaked to the press in 2004. The brand is named posthumously and he never ran it, but the name is his.

What the hats ask

Group	Listings	Median ask
Von Dutch hats and caps	340	$42.50
Trucker hats with no Von Dutch in the title	1,636	$18

Nearly two and a half to one for the oval patch, on the same construction — wider than the two-to-one measured on 1 September, and wider on both sides of the ratio. 34 of the 340 Von Dutch hat listings are described as new.

Von Dutch has been counterfeited heavily since the mid-2000s, and no listing in this pull photographs an inside band, a size tag or stitching close-up. Nothing here separates a real hat from a copy; it identifies the design only.

Last verified 10 September 2026. Brand and construction facts from the sources below; listing figures computed from 1,322 Von Dutch listings and 1,636 other trucker-hat listings, matched inside two 3,000-row US affiliate product-feed pulls made the same day. That is a deeper read than 1 September's, so the counts are not comparable with it; the trucker-hat median is, coming back at $18 against $20 on a pull fifteen times the size. Price figures are computed from a CJ Affiliate product-feed pull of US advertisers made on 1 September 2026. Peer-to-peer marketplace asks of $500 or more are excluded as seller placeholders, as are repdigit asks such as $999 and $9,999 wherever they appear; retailer prices are used as published. Counts are deduplicated row counts, never a feed totalCount.

Frequently asked

What is the winged eyeball on a Von Dutch hat?

The flying eyeball, a motif associated with Kenneth Howard, the pinstriper who signed his work Von Dutch and died in 1992.

Who designed the Von Dutch trucker hat?

Christian Audigier, hired by the brand in 2002. He based the shape on mid-century Americana including Marlon Brando's cap in The Wild One.

What is the difference between a trucker hat and a baseball cap?

A trucker hat has a stiff foam front panel and a plastic mesh back with a snap closure, which makes the crown stand taller. A baseball cap is cotton all round.

Is Von Dutch still a brand?

Yes. The global rights were bought by White Space Group in 2024, after Groupe Royer S.A. held them from 2009.

Sources

Wikipedia, Von Dutch — Kenneth Howard's death in 1992, the trademark chain through Ed Boswell, Mike Cassell and Bobby Vaughn, Christian Audigier's 2002 hire and the trucker hat's Wild One inspiration, the 2003 sales peak above $33 million, the Groupe Royer and White Space Group purchases, and the 1992 letter leaked in 2004
Wikipedia, Trucker hat — the foam-front and mesh-back construction, the 1970s farm-supply giveaway origin, and the gimme cap and feed cap names
CJ Affiliate product feeds, US advertisers, queried 1 September 2026 — every count and price figure on this page is a deduplicated row count from that pull