Hooey Brands

If you've been to a rodeo, you've heard the word before you ever saw the logo.

A hooey is the last wrap — the half-hitch you throw in tie-down roping right before your hands go up and the clock stops. It's a term that's been around since the first rodeo in 1872, and it's the name Joey Austin gave the brand he started in Spring Branch, Texas in 2009 with exactly two cap designs. He'd grown up competing in tie-down and spent time around California surf culture, and he saw something nobody else had built yet: a western brand with action-sports energy, made for the rodeo kids who wanted their own style instead of their granddad's.

It worked. Hooey went from caps sold out of a truck to one of the most recognizable names in western — and the reason is still the same reason: they sweat the details.