New Era has a billion-dollar licensing business, but can it establish a brand of its own?

Fashion designer Dao-yi Chow has had a long career, both with his own brand Public School, founded with Maxwell Osborne in 2008, and with stints at other brands like Tom Brady’s performance apparel-focused brand Brady.

His newest role is vp and creative director of brand at the 140-year-old hat company New Era, known for its ubiquitous baseball caps. While New Era sells hundreds of licensed products — an abundance of team, logo and brand names can be found on New Era hats — Chow’s job is to help establish and drive the brand side of the business without the crutch of a licensed logo.

“New Era has a huge and successful licensed business,” Chow said. “So our job is to figure out how to establish this brand without having the luxury of the Yankees logo. You put a Yankees logo on anything and it will sell. We know we can do licensing really well, but now we have to build up the brand side.”

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