Introduction
A hat has never been just window-dressing, right? Hats have long stood as embodiments of style, tradition, time and place. In the complex framework that makes up fashion, hats can be one of the most important markers to define whether an ensemble should be formal or casual; bright or neutral; playful or serious; designed to battle a chill or fight off a blinding sun. A hat helps determine the mood, purpose and tone of an outfit. Everything in fashion is about context, and just as varying degrees of formality exist for garments – a suit and tie are more formal than a T-shirt and slacks, for example – so it is with hats.
Formal Hat Fabrics
Definition of Formal Wear
Formal dress is clothing suitable for formal occasions. It follows certain rules about what to wear for such special events. You need to wear formal dress for a wedding or black tie ball.
Suitable Fabrics
Wool Felt
Characteristics: Dense and silky, wool felt is soft to the touch. It has a sleek, elegant look. Use: Wool felt has good shape retention.
Advantages: Exuding classic elegance, wool felt hats are synonymous with structured sophistication.
Applications: Whether dapper fedoras or distinguished top hats and traditional bowler hats, wool felt is the fabric of choice for formal headwear.
Velvet
Properties: Luxuriously soft with a rich texture, velvet evokes opulence and grandeur.
Benefits: adding a touch of elegance, the hats made from the velvet make the fancy dressing look more sophisticated.
Uses: Who could forget those fancy hats, oversize for dress and puffed with feminine finery for opera, or cocktail chic?
Silk
Properties: Smooth, lustrous, and lightweight, silk epitomizes luxury and sophistication.
Benefits: Silk hats are light and have finely textured, creating an impression of sophistication that completes the composition of the Western formal clothing.
Uses: From decorating top hats at the dinners of the military, ascot hats at garden parties, and evening hats at prestigious events, everywhere you turn there’s a silk product.
Casual Hat Fabrics
Definition of Casual Wear
Casual clothes are comfortable and functional, designed to be worn on everyday occassions. When it comes to what you wear in your day-to-day life, casual clothes are a stylish way to dress comfortably and naturally. From weekend walks to relaxed social events, casual clothing allows us to feel natural and comfortable in any situation.
Suitable Fabrics
Cotton
Properties: Breathable, soft, and inherently comfortable, cotton is the epitome of casual versatility.
Disadvantages: Cotton hats aren’t built to last, and they won’t match with a suit.Advantages: Adaptable and easy to style, cotton hats fit well with a large variety of casual outfits.
Applications: From traditional baseball caps to ‘bucket’ hats and conical straw hats for summer wear, cotton is ready for any day or style.
Linen
Properties: Lightweight, breathable, and boasting a natural texture, linen embodies casual sophistication.
Advantages: Great for warm weather, linen hats are just the right amount of slouchy posing and subtle classiness.
Benefits: either indulging at the beach, lazing over a picnic, or partaking in a cobbled-roadside brunch al fresco. Linen is the indispensable travel accessory, and linen hats are the accessories to that travel accessory.
Denim
Properties: Durable, rugged, and imbued with a distinct texture, denim exudes casual coolness.
Pros: Denim hats add an urban cinematic edge, slip seamlessly into a carefree bohemian chic vibe, and exude youthful energy and vibrancy.
Uses: They are ready-made accessories for those ubiquitous trucker hats and baseball caps synonymous with cool casualwear and groovy leisurewear of the 1950s to today.
But they’re beautiful from the inside out Hats are about function – the body needs a cap when it’s cold, dark, wet or windy. But they’re also about fashion – the very essence of which is expression: of personality, purpose, context. So what’s the correct attitude to the fabrics of hats? Are the same rules for jacket fabric applicable? In short, how to handle the tension between formal elegance and casual chic? There’s a rich world of hats in finer fabrics – in wool felt, velvet and silk respectively reserved for the formal, fancy-dress fare. But there’s also casually chic hats in cotton, linen and denim. Whether you’re sharpening up and heading into a black-tie event or you’re shrugging off burdens and heading out for a pint at your local, there’s a hat to suit you. Fabric makes all the difference. Let the fabric be your guide. Enjoy choosing and wearing your hats – they’re a reflection of your style and your spirit, and how well you use them.
Considerations for Fabric Selection in Hat Making
Everything matters in the world of fashion – from the cut of a sleeve to the colour of a lining. But, in the competitive world of hat making, fabric selection is key. What materials can affect the final look and feel of your hat? How do you choose the right material for the design you want to make? These are the questions answered here. From bespoke fedoras to bucket hats, finding the correct fabric for a hat will affect it in a variety of ways – from climate to self-expression.
Climate and Season: Choosing Fabrics Suitable for the Weather Conditions
The question of fabric choice when it comes to hats depends on the time of year (or indeed, a specific season) that they are to be worn. Some fabrics provide more insulation and others more breathability, while some are water-resistant and some are not.
Light fabrics such as cotton, linen, and straw are suitable for summer hats because they are breathable and the wearer can feel cool while wearing the hat.Hats for hot and humid climates are often made from light-weight fabrics such as cotton, linen or straw, because these fabrics let air flow through and the wearer can actually feel cool even on a hot day.
Winter Hats: Worn in cold and wintery weather, hats made from wool, fleece and other insulated fibres keep one warm and protected from the elements. These fibres trap heat close to the body and keep the wearer snug and warm in cold weather.
Transitional Seasons: When daytime temperatures fluctuate in spring and fall, wool blends, denim and leather with their midweight feel lie somewhere between cool and warm in their level of warmth, so they are good choices for transition weather.
The hat maker, in order to keep his customers satisfied, can then choose fabrics suitable to the climate and season of the hat he is making so that his hats let their wearers feel comfortable throughout the year.
Event and Dress Code: Matching the Hat Fabric to the Formality of the Occasion
The occasion for which the hat will be worn is another important factor to consider in fabric selection. Specific events require greater formality, and the fabric choice should account for the dress code and the aesthetic of the event.
Formal Events: Weddings and other similarly refined affairs such as galas or black-tie soirées are certainly occasions where hats from silk, velvet or wool felt lend themselves best. These fabrics are the epitome of formal wear, and thus tailor-suited for refined affairs.
Informal Gatherings: These casual hats are the ideal choice for more informal outings, such as picnics, beach trips or casual outings with friends. These non-woven fabrics – made from cotton, denim or straw – lend hats a more casual feel, which goes well with the casual atmosphere of informal gatherings.
Professional settings: polite settings such as work or business meetings,head covering made of a polished fabric such as wool or tweedwearerscan add to the formality of the clothing. Such fabrics communicate privilege and power,and are appropriate for formal work or business environments.
As long as hat fabric matches the formality of the event, hat-makers will have created headwear that fits the aesthetic and the dress code. And that guides the wearer’s experience of themselves.
Personal Style: Reflecting Individual Preferences and Aesthetics in Fabric Choice
Save for climate and event suitability, style choice dictates the procedures for selecting fabric in hat-making. Personal style describes an individual’s approach to fashion and self-expression.
Timeless appeal: for those who prefer a classic look over trends, silk or wool felt or velvet offers a smooth polished elegance that will never go out of style.
Contemporary chic: smart, on-trend people with a fashionable take on their style might prefer denim, leather, or a technical material such as neoprene or Gore-Tex® to create a contemporary look.
Free-bohemian spirit: Straw, hemp or organic cotton create a bohemian feeling for go-with-the-flow-types who love mixed-media styles and natural textures.
Through attention to personal style preferences and aesthetics, hatters become storytellers in using fabric preselection and fibre intensity to design bespoke hats that resonate with the wearer’s identity and fostering self-expression.
Hat making is an art, and the selection of fabric is very complex. As in selecting clothing, a main principle is the correspondence between materials, climate and dress codes. Using the right materials at the right time answers the wearers’ basic needs while making the hats stylish and fashionable in any situation. Whether it is a formal occasion of ceremony and high rank accommodating a felt top hat (la borsalino in Italy, der bowler in Australia and Germany) or a sporty day, heading to the beach and wearing an embroidered straw hat (the panama) or a lombard bucket hat, the right fabric can turn the hat from an irrelevant object of fashion into a sophisticated and complete sartorial piece, protecting the wearer, expressing joy or cheerfulness, and reflecting the lifestyle, attitude and social position of the hat wearer. May hat lovers and wearers be inspired to explore properties of materials and adjust selection of hats to occasions as they embark on their glorious fashionist sartorial life, wearing beautiful hats and confident smiles.
Personal Style: Reflecting Individual Preferences and Aesthetics in Fabric Choice
Personal style – it’s what makes or breaks fashion, and why headwear is both artwork and creation in the hands of the milliner, rather than a mere afterthought. It’s unrelenting and limitless as it plays around in the mind of the wearer to create a unique sense of self, every single day: making the most perfect sartorial choices to embody their moods and present their colours, shapes and whimsical accents. Climate and event are still important considerations (the skull generally requires much more subdued colours; a hat in Punjab would require sun protection) yet it’s personal style that has the final say in whispers that suggest a velvet hat here or a satin hat there, as if speaking to the wearer from a faraway place as if it were a velvet hat one would know and love. Before looking into what goes into making these three personal style archetypes found in the world of illustration, allow us to walk down the corridors and passages of variant and possibly fractal personal style in an attempt to identify the most transcendent and useful fabric in sensitive skin schematics from the many artisanal millinery hats in the Gabriela Collections library.
Classic Elegance
Classic elegance is a physical attribute for those blessed with a classic good looks. For the agelessly elegant and refined, looking good is simply a question of lifestyle. Classic to the core, and if done right, laden with samurai grace, classic elegance wears its minimalist, low maintenance soul on its sleeves. Translucent, transparent, ethereal fabrics tend to reveal rather than conceal as well as showcase high-thread counts.
Fabrics:
Silk: Light as a feather, smooth as a river’s ripple, and soft as a kitten’s fur, silk always communicates sophistication and style and grace. A silk ribbon on a top hat at a grand event, and a silk hatband or flower on an afternoon hat at a soirée.
Wool Felt: Feels thick and smooth with kirbgartel, soft to touch, and washes beautifully retaining its shape. Great for sculpture. Wool felt is the traditional feeling material for felt hats, and it shows: classic fedoras and top hats are the epitome of gentlemanly style.
Velvet: Touchingly soft and impressively furry, nothing enhances an outfit more than velvet; nothing spells opulent elegance more emphatically than velvet; nothing better captures the spirit of high society, the swish and the flourish, the velvet opinion, the velvet glove, than velvet.Whether or not one takes this list of fine words and phrases to be Bonnell’s best work, it seems to have garnered a good deal of praise. From April 1981 to June 1982, the column provoked more than a hundred letters of commendation to the Mail: letters that reflected positively on its inclusion of such a feature in a newspaper that dominated the Monday morning’s conversations of millions of schoolchildren in Britain.
Contemporary Chic
Unlike timeless beauty, which remains untainted by passing trends or the modern world, contemporary chic focuses on innovation, artistry and often radical reinvention. It is an assertive and confident look that is open to modern clothes and trends. In terms of materials, contemporary chic goes for fabrics that are edgy and urban.
Fabrics:
Jeans: denim is highly durable, tough yet cool, and add a contemporary chic feel to any outfit. Baseball cap: denim caps are fashionable in styles like the trucker or just as part of an everyday baseball.
Leather: Smooth, sexy and undeniably elite, leather exudes a rebellious sophistication. A leather fedora, or tough-guy leather biker hat, invariably makes you feel like a badass.
Technical Materials: Neoprene, Gore-Tex®… the landscape of technical materials is vast. You can infuse a cap for an outdoor performance with neoprene, but you could also wear a come-to-town hat with Gore-Tex®. Either will bring a touch of futuristic fabric to one of the hallmarks of premodern attire.
Bohemian Spirit
For wandering spirits – vagabonds and free spirits who look for solace in their own rhythm – bohemian spirit is an eclectic taste in styles, a love of natural textures and laid-back chic. It’s closely linked to a natural affinity to the elements and a tendency towards wanderlust. Bohemian spirit glows in fabrics and noble materials that capture a raw beauty and unforced chic.
Fabrics:
Straw: Light, breezy, and rustic, straw oozes hippie vibes. A straw boater or straw hat is something you throw on as you’re running out the door to the beach or to catch a hot-air balloon – a utilitarian enjoyment.
Hemp: the garment of bohemian: natural, versatile, eco-friendly. Worn in relaxed hemp bucket hat, or gentle hemp sun hat, it’s a good environmental choice for the fashionista with a conscience.
Organic Cotton: 100% Organic Cotton is lightweight, airy and naturally comfortable. If you are a bohemian at heart, organic cotton is your true calling. Whether in a cool organic cotton baseball cap or a relaxed organic cotton bucket hat, your hat will look effortlessly stylish and casual.
Fabric choice is a key aspect of personal style and that is why I try to give my clients plenty of options to express themselves and their individuality. I love the opportunity to create something bespoke and personal, whether it’s the ultimate old-school elegant queen, a contemporary chic diva, a bohemian free spirit, or any imaginable type of woman. When I think about fabric choice, I take both the personal style preferences and the aesthetic values of the client into account. Whether they are more hands-off or prefer to be involved in every step of the process, the fabric is an essential element of my work. It’s my key for crafting a piece that not only looks good for the client, but ultimately reflects her style and makes her feel good while she wears it. But the story doesn’t end there: you can also consider matching the hat with jewellery, scarves, shoes and bags. For instance, we might select a fabric that goes well with particular earrings our client wants to wear. Instead of just picking something that suits the client, pay attention to what she likes and matches. An old friend of mine, a fashion addict, once said she hopes to be buried in her christening gown. There’s something about clothes and hats that can be burial equipment; for thousands of years it’s how some people have dealt with the demise of their beloved dresses and hats. Long live hats!
