HolyHats — Edge merch in the form of a bucket hat with a glorious hole in the top - made from up-cycled ocean fishnets - great for the hairy and bald alike

Colloquially: the gloryhat. The crown hole frees your bun, gilds a halo tan-line, and ventilates in the sun — and no, you don't need long hair to enjoy one (top of your head has some of the best vitamin D receptors so hats are great for the bald and hairy alike). HolyHats is a participatory upcycling activation for Edge Esmeralda. Fishing nets are ~46% of ocean plastic by weight; Return to Vendor (RTV) turns them into infinitely-recyclable, PFAS-free nylon at ~70% lower CO2 than virgin. We make that tangible and wearable for the village. What we'll do with funding: (1) Order Edge art inspired hats (2) A making + decorating session at the Wellbeing Hub — residents design and claim their own HolyHat (the hole at the crown frees your top-knot; great sun protection for the important bits, instant halo tan-line). (3) A second made-to-order run of HolyHats in RTV ocean-net nylon — no deadstock, zero waste. (4) Publish the open 'blank HolyHat' template as a commons — anyone can upload their own artwork and order one, during Edge and after. Why it benefits the village: a shared, recognisable Edge artifact; a hands-on lesson in circular materials; sun cover for a month in Healdsburg; and an open template that outlasts the gathering. Craft, climate, and community in one object. A second version: we'll also make a crocheted HolyHat — still using RTV thread, but handmade by women (there are no mechanized crochet machines). The handmade nature supports local communities while using carbon-negative thread. We're open to input on which communities we should source the hand-crochet from! see more on RTV fabric here: https://thirdsphere.substack.com/p/why-we-invested-in-return-to-vendor ━━━ Budget Request (updated) ━━━ • 50 Edge-design HolyHats — $1,000 • 50 community / custom HolyHats — $1,000 ━━━ Total: $2,000 ━━━ We heard the pushback on price and dropped from $50 to $20 per hat — RTV hitting price parity with virgin nylon is what makes that possible. Full pitch, photos & QR codes → https://mielamayer.github.io/holyhat/