Milion chvilek apologizes for pricey Večerníček hats, pulls them

The civic movement Milion chvilek has publicly apologized for its expensive Večerníček hats and pulled them from sale. “We made a mistake. We apologize,” the organization wrote on its Facebook page on Tuesday. It was responding to criticism, including from politicians in the governing coalition and from ordinary people.

According to the organization, the complaints mostly concerned the high prices and how the Večerníček hat, a symbol of the protests, had been handled as merchandise. “We have to admit that, in many respects, they are justified,” the movement said. It stressed, however, that these were designer items made from quality materials, produced in small batches of 50 to 100 and mostly sewn by hand in Czechia. On the website they were offered from 1,190 crowns apiece.

Milion chvilek insists it made no profit on the items: the price matched the costs. “And yet we made a mistake. We underestimated how a symbol of a shared civic effort can look on fairly expensive goods. And above all, we did not think through that a hat that became a symbol of shared resistance needs to be treated with greater care,” the statement says. In the organization’s view, the hats do not belong in an online shop, which is why they were removed from sale. The movement added that the hats already produced had sold out anyway.

The post also says the entire collection will be withdrawn from sale. On Tuesday afternoon, however, some products, including sweatshirts and winter hats, could still be bought on the website.

The organization named another mistake as well: the online shop showed images created by artificial intelligence instead of real photos of the products. “We should have waited until they were ready,” Milion chvilek acknowledged.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz