ARCHIVE - Hats Off, and On, to Boston Scally

If you've ever hung out with anyone from Boston, there's one thing you're certain to discover: Pride. Bean Town men and women love their city, and they display their affection as clearly as they display their accents.

Mike Arone, 29, has such a strong Boston personality -- warm yet abrupt, loud yet affectionate -- you half expect to find him hanging out with Sam and Diane after hours. But Arone left Boston to work in New York, and, to keep the memory of his hometown alive, started Boston Scally, an online store that sells Scallys, those caps that laymen often call newsboys. That would be somewhat incorrect.

"There are a ton of different theories," says Arone on the word's origin. "Some people think the word 'scally' is short for 'scallywag,' a punk, essentially 'white trash.' I personally don't think that's how it originated. It just means someone who's mischievous. People from Boston have that kind of attitude."

Arone continues: "The reason for wearing them back then was to keep the sun out. In the winter, you could have a wool one; in the summer, you could have a cool one. They weren't wearing hard hats back then."

BostonScally.com has only been around since October, 2013, and is Arone's microcosm of the city he loves.

"Boston is, overall, a very blue-collar city," he says. "People have very similar upbringings. It's a very close-knit community. People have a great deal of pride, and the only way to show that has been a shirt or a baseball cap. I thought, 'There has to be something new.' Now, more than ever, you see everyone in Boston wearing a Scally cap. My old man wore one."

While you might associate Scally caps with men (and, if you look at the photos, hot men!) Arone says about 50 percent of his customers are women. "I have a photo of my wife wearing one, and a lot of women buy them for men."

Yes, guys, if you didn't catch that last line, Arone is straight. He's also about as rough and rugged as the other guys in the photos -- he's the one in the middle of the top photo -- who are all relatives or brothers of Arone. Yep, this business is all in the Boston family.

"Hire models? That's bullshit," says Arone. "Why would I do that? People who wear my stuff, they're blue-collar guys, their shirts aren't going to fit them perfectly. They're going to bars, drinking beers, busting balls."

And they're real.

"Black, white, gay, straight, purple, that doesn't matter," says Arone on his customer base. "What matters to my brand is whether you're fit, you're proud of your city, you're working class. If you're an asshole, I don't want you wearing my brand."

No one's going to accuse of Arone of "kissing up," and that's his (and his city's) charm. BostonScally.com is, at the moment, only available online, and only sells a few types of items. The close-knit marketing parallels Arone's self-sufficient style.

While expansion is in the works, "A lot of people who start apparel lines, they don't learn about the business side," says Arone, on his organic approach to expansion. "I know that my caps are worth 42 bucks. Some people charge too much; some not enough."

And some just like to make home their base.

For more information, visit //www.bostonscally.com.