Peace Collective's #UnravelHate campaign by Zulu Alpha Kilo physically transformed a MAGA cap into a Welcome to Canada toque, winning Gold at AME Awards 2020.
ARCHIVEPeace Collective Turns a MAGA Hat Into a Welcome to Canada Toque
Peace Collective's #UnravelHate campaign physically deconstructs a MAGA-style cap stitch by stitch and reweaves its threads into a red "Welcome to Canada" toque, transforming a symbol of division into one of acceptance, launching in Canada in April 2019 through Toronto agency Zulu Alpha Kilo.
The campaign operates on a deceptively simple but technically demanding premise. A hat widely recognised as a symbol of exclusionary politics is unraveled entirely, its constituent threads salvaged and then hand-rewoven into a distinctly Canadian garment. The resulting toque carries the message "Welcome to Canada" and is worn by five individuals whose own stories embody the diversity that message invokes: a Syrian refugee, an LGBTQ American who relocated to Canada, and an immigrant from Uganda, among others, as documented by Shorty Awards. Each subject brings lived weight to what could otherwise be a symbolic gesture.
The campaign's commercial and charitable mechanics are inseparable from its creative argument. Proceeds from toque sales, along with revenue from auctioning the original reworked garments, were donated to WoodGreen Community Services, a Toronto-based organisation that supports immigrants and refugees, as confirmed by Shorty Awards. This donation structure grounds the narrative in tangible community impact rather than letting it rest on imagery alone. Roman Hessary, Co-founder of Peace Collective, told The Drum on April 2, 2019: "We have an opportunity to tell the world that acceptance is stronger than hate, so the idea was to take a symbol of division and completely transform it." That statement doubles as both creative brief and brand philosophy. Clapboard scores #UnravelHate at 78 out of 100, reflecting the campaign's tight conceptual integrity and its measurable cultural reach across Canada and beyond.
Peace Collective is a Toronto apparel brand built on values-led fashion. Its strategic position in Canada depends on differentiating from larger lifestyle brands such as Canada Goose and Roots, both of which occupy the premium Canadiana segment with far greater distribution and marketing budgets. Rather than competing on volume or heritage, Peace Collective competes on conviction, and #UnravelHate is the clearest expression of that competitive logic to date.
The insight driving Zulu Alpha Kilo's creative strategy is precise: in the political climate of 2019, a garment had become one of the most recognisable political signals in North America. The MAGA cap's visibility in Canadian public discourse gave Peace Collective a ready-made cultural object to work against. By choosing to transform rather than merely oppose that object, the brand avoided the trap of reactive negativity. As Roman Hessary stated to The Drum, "This is a campaign that's grounded in Canadian values — diversity is our strength," per LBB Online. The stitch-by-stitch deconstruction is not metaphor; it is the literal production method, which gives the campaign its credibility as a craft object and not just a provocation.
In Canada, the apparel and fashion sector operates within a retail environment that has faced persistent structural pressure from e-commerce and cross-border competition. McKinsey's Global Fashion Index, as reported by Fibre2Fashion, forecast global apparel growth of approximately 3.5 to 4.5 percent in 2019, reflecting a moderating but still expanding market. Within that environment, smaller Canadian brands that cannot compete on price or shelf space must earn attention through cultural relevance. #UnravelHate demonstrates how a single product concept, when anchored to a genuine social tension, can generate earned media reach that would otherwise require a paid media budget far beyond a brand of Peace Collective's scale. The decision to involve WoodGreen Community Services adds institutional credibility that further separates the campaign from cause-washing criticism.
The film at the centre of #UnravelHate documents a real transformation. A MAGA-style red cap is physically unraveled, thread by thread, its seams opened and its structure dismantled on camera. The salvaged yarn is then used to knit a new garment: a red toque bearing the words "Welcome to Canada." That sequence — destruction, recovery, reconstruction — is the campaign's entire argument rendered in craft, as documented by Shorty Awards and reported by LBB Online.
Adweek, reporting on April 8, 2019, characterised the execution as a striking piece of visual activism, noting the deliberate slowness of the unraveling process as central to the film's emotional effect. The stitch-by-stitch pacing refuses urgency; it insists the viewer watch the transformation in full. That formal choice aligns the film's rhythm with its message: change takes time, care, and intention. The five subjects who wear or are associated with the final toque — including a Syrian refugee, an LGBTQ American living in Canada, and an immigrant from Uganda, per Shorty Awards — are not presented as statistics. They appear as individuals, grounding the abstraction of political symbol-making in recognisable human presence.
The creative direction by Zulu Alpha Kilo treats the garment itself as the primary medium. Production credits for the #UnravelHate film beyond the agency attribution to Zulu Alpha Kilo are not fully documented in public sources, though the campaign's submission records at Shorty Awards and the ADC's One Club confirm Zulu Alpha Kilo as the creating agency. The decision to shoot the unraveling in close detail — hands working thread, needles moving through fabric — gives the film a tactile intimacy unusual in fashion advertising. In Canada, where craft and community are recurring brand signals across the apparel category, that intimacy reads as authenticity rather than art direction.
ARCHIVE#UnravelHate earned recognition across multiple independent award bodies in the 2020 cycle. The campaign received a Silver Cube at the ADC Annual Awards in the Design for Good and Fashion Design category, as confirmed by the One Club. It won Gold at the AME Awards in the Best Use of Medium — Digital and Mobile category, per AME Awards. The Shorty Awards recognised the campaign in both the Social Activism and Call to Action categories, as documented by Shorty Awards. These three separate bodies represent design, effectiveness, and social impact criteria respectively, indicating the campaign performed across dimensions rather than in a single register.
Beyond award recognition, the campaign generated more than 50 pieces of national and international media coverage, as reported by Branding in Asia and confirmed through Shorty Awards submission records. That volume of earned coverage, for a Canadian apparel brand without a major paid media footprint, represents a significant return on a concept-led production. The donation of proceeds to WoodGreen Community Services created a verifiable charitable outcome that reinforced the campaign's credibility in press coverage across Canada and internationally. Structurally, #UnravelHate succeeds because its product — the toque — is real, purchasable, and directly connected to the narrative. The campaign does not ask audiences to share a sentiment; it asks them to acquire an object with a documented origin and a named beneficiary. That commercial and social coherence is the most durable element of its effectiveness, and the primary reason Clapboard scores it at 78 out of 100.
#UnravelHate is a 2019 Canadian apparel campaign by Peace Collective and Zulu Alpha Kilo. It physically unraveled a MAGA-style cap stitch by stitch and rewove the thread into a red "Welcome to Canada" toque. Proceeds were donated to WoodGreen Community Services, which supports immigrants and refugees in Canada.
Zulu Alpha Kilo created #UnravelHate for Peace Collective. The campaign launched on April 2, 2019, in Canada. It was conceived by the Toronto-based agency in partnership with Peace Collective Co-founder Roman Hessary, whose stated goal was to transform a symbol of division into one of acceptance.
#UnravelHate won a Silver Cube at the ADC Annual Awards, Gold at the AME Awards in the Best Use of Medium — Digital and Mobile category, and two Shorty Awards in the Social Activism and Call to Action categories, all in the 2020 award cycle, per Shorty Awards, AME Awards, and the One Club.
The #UnravelHate film featured five immigrants and refugees living in Canada. Subjects included a Syrian refugee, an LGBTQ American who relocated to Canada, and an immigrant from Uganda, as documented by Shorty Awards. Their personal stories were central to the campaign's narrative of acceptance and Canadian identity.
Proceeds from toque sales and auctioned original garments were donated to WoodGreen Community Services in Canada. WoodGreen is a Toronto organisation that provides support to immigrants and refugees, as confirmed by Shorty Awards records. The charitable component was integral to the campaign's strategy and not a secondary add-on.
#UnravelHate generated more than 50 pieces of national and international media coverage following its April 2019 launch in Canada, as reported by Branding in Asia and confirmed through Shorty Awards documentation. That earned media volume was notable for a Canadian apparel brand without a large paid media presence.
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