We just got through Snowpocalypse 2012 here in the Seattle area! I measured 6 full inches of snow, which is the most I’ve ever experienced in my 20 years of living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. We had a stretch of several days where we could barely get out of our cul-de-sac. With several small kids, that meant that we had plenty snow fun in our own neighborhood. Getting kids bundled up for the frigid air was no small feat, and it got me thinking about what the best options are for winter warmth. Here are my suggestions:
Wool caps are great for snow. Wool is a natural insulator, so it will keep you warm even if it gets wet. We put cotton beanies on our kids one day, but within a few minutes, they were wet and more of a threat to making them cold than a viable option for warmth. A wool cap won’t have that problem.
Fleece Caps are great if you will have an outer layer or if you don’t plan on getting wet. Fleece is comfortable and a great warmer, but not as great for wet conditions as wool caps. If it’s just a light dusting of snow or a drizzle, a fleece hat will be great. But if your little one will be getting wetter, try a Tilley Topper over a fleece hat or else stick to a wool cap.
Fur felt fedoras are great for rainy conditions. Fur felt is naturally water resistant (as well as great for a sun protection hat). It keeps water off of you, keeps warmth near your head, and with the larger brimmed fedora, like an Indiana Jones Fedora, you don’t have to worry about your face or neck getting wet, which is definitely a concern with a beanie or smaller cap.
Mad bomber hats or Aviator hats offer the best warmth. If you are needing extra warmth, something with earflaps cannot be beat. There are lots of both fur lined or fleece lined mad bomber hats that will keep your noggin extra comfortable, though hearing might be slightly reduced. Tilley makes a number of winter hats with optional earflaps, which I think more hat companies should implement.
Hopefully that gives you some good ideas for how to tackle the chill this winter. For even more on choosing clothing for the inclement weather, REI has a great article on it! Have fun and stay warm out there!
I know this is 3 days late, but we at HatsRCool have been enjoying a bit of downtime after the Christmas rush. National Hat Day was upon us on January 15th. It’s the one day a year you have an excuse to wear a ridiculous lid out in public (not that you need an excuse to wear a silly lid).
Better late than never, so without further ado, here are a few of the best hats we have seen in the past year that you should (have) considered wearing for National Hat Day!
This knit Turkey Hat might be the perfect Thanksgiving gag. But no need to reserve it to just November. This hat deserves a repeat on January 15th!
If you’re hoping to make a hat from scratch, you should definitely consider the brain cap! This might be the perfect NHD option if you’re a pre-med student. However, there are a few warnings if you go this route: Beware of zombies if you want to go with the brain cap! And you better make sure you won’t be around too many squeamish folk if you’re going to try this hat out in public places. For a knit pattern, check this out. Or for one made of caulk and paint, here’s a video of how to make one.
This might not work too well as the day drags on, but there’s always the live animal hat! Hey, plenty of people wear dead animal hats like fur hats or coonskin caps. Why not be PETA friendly with your favorite furry friend on your head? Although, it might not go over very well if someone else at the office had the same idea for National Hat Day!
Finally, there’s always the classic bearded knit cap. We wrote about this when we first came across it, and it seems to have continued to catch on throughout 2011. This is another option you can make yourself. And if you’re worried about your little kiddo getting cold, you can even knit a baby’s bearded beanie!
So get ready for next year… there’s only 362 days to prepare! Get your thinking cap on, get creative, and support National Hat day with a unique and awesome style of your own!
I know Philip Treacy is a famous hat designer. And I know that all press is good press. But just when I thought he would have learned his lesson after the Princess Beatrice debacle, he created an even more ridiculous hat for SJP’s trip to Australia.
Sarah Jessica Parker is not new to wearing hats as fashion statements. Whether it’s out shopping in casual attire and an Indiana Jones Hat in NYC or wearing a gorgeous fascinator in formal gown, she knows how to wear a hat in style. But when she wore this Phillip Treacy hat in Melborne, it was quite the mistake. She clearly had trouble seeing where she was going, and probably had to focus 90% of her energy on just keeping the thing on her head. Hopefully they won’t end up rethinking her 2012 Headwear Hall of Fame induction after this hat.
But we at HatsRCool recommend taking risks with fun and creative headwear. So we’re going to let this one slide, SJP. Keep rocking the hat styles and we’ll let you know when you’ve overstepped your bounds. But as a favor, if you’re going to go a bit too far again, please don’t go Lady Gaga on us and wear a telephone or piece of meat on your head!
What do you do when you’ve won $1,000,000 on a reality game show? You start a winter headwear business! That’s what “Survivor: Panama” winner Aras Baskauskas has done. No, the Survivor winner did not elect to start a company making packable sun hats, inspired by his time in Panama. The 30 year old businessman from California used proceeds from Survivor to fund Tundra Gear, the winter hat company he is running out of his garage.
Tundra Gear hats all come in the same style: the Mad Bomber hat style. But what they tout is superior warmth and top durability in a fun and lighthearted design. They make the hats in a variety of sports team colors with matching logos. They even snagged NFL superstar Terrel Owens to endorse their hats.
There are a lot of other companies making mad bomber or russian aviator hats pitched as the fashionable winter warming headwear, which looks like glorified coonskin caps. But they do provide incredible warmth in the winter. And if you’ve ever tried a rabbit fur mad bomber hat, you know that it is like a piece of heaven resting on your noggin! Hopefully Aras has success with the hat company, as those who watched Survivor: Pamana are well aware of what he had to go through to get that prize money!
A well-made winter hat serves two equally important ends. First, it keeps your noggin warm in those cold winter months by working to maintain the body heat you produce naturally, while protecting your head from wind, sleet, rain, snow and the like. It is a well known fact that a large percentage of your body heat is lost through your head. So keeping it warm is quite a workload! But hold on! Because the second function of a good winter hat is that it makes you look good while it is doing all that work. Listen, you could wrap your head in a wool blanket and stroll down the avenue, but nobody is going to admire you for your dapper style.
No, a good winter hat allows you to stop hunkering, slouching or cowering for warmth. You can stand up straight as you stroll about because you won’t be fighting to keep warm, and also because you know you look good. So, from now on forget about just throwing on your baseball cap and hoping for the best. Save it for spring training.
Tweed driver caps are great because they are durable and have no brim to worry about, and look great with sweaters and overcoats. But an often overlooked winter hat is the fur felt fedora. It is very effective at keeping rain out and warmth in. More functional than it’s cousin the Indiana Jones hat, this Tilley hat is perfect for keeping crisp wind and bright winter sun out of your eyes. This Tilley Winter hat even features tuckaway earflaps to keep you extra warm during the bitter cold.
Almost every day my brother sends me what he calls, “Pictures of the day”. It’s pictures from the Sports Illustrated vault of vintage atheletes, great moments in sports history, or hilarious pictures of people from previous issues of SI. It’s usually the highlight of my day.
Well last week, one of the images my brother sent me was this picture of Charles Barkley (this must be 25 years old!) wearing this slick leather fedora hat. I’m not exactly sure why all he is wearing is the leather fedora and sweatpants. Maybe he wanted to show the world that he’s not “the round mound of rebound” (that was a nickname he received in college that he was not at all fond of). Barkley, also known as “Sir Charles” sometimes struggled with his weight, but was known as one of the best rebounders and all-around greatest basketball players to ever live, despite being only 6’4″.
Anyway, this picture is absolutely classic. So, Sir Charles, we forgive the gambling problems, drunk driving mistakes, and inappropriate comments. Nobody is perfect. But this picture of you wearing an amazing black leather indiana jones hat is priceless! And you are still the best NBA commentator! Thanks for staying classy, Mr. Barkley.
At the Magic Trade Show, a twice a year trade show on fashion, apparel, and accessories, Kangol showed off some new headwear that is pushing the technology boundaries for hats. It seems like this should have happened a long time ago. Here’s how the logic follows:
People use mp3 players and smartphones constantly.
People want convenient ways to use their mp3 player or smartphone
Winter headwear is one of the hottest fashion accessories
Build headphones into great-looking winter hats!
It might take people a while to catch on to the idea that a hat will meet a technological function, but I think it’s a brilliant idea. Kangol already has incredible amounts of trust with customers. People know that they create fashionable hats, use high quality, and are not in the gimmick market. So they’re a natural choice to try out a whool cap with speakers embedded in the earflaps. It will be interesting to see if the Aerial 7 takes off.
As far as other hat manufacturers going this route, I’m interested to see who else tries this. I could really imagine Tilley Hats trying this. They have been innovators since their inception, and know how to pull off new materials, designs, and options. It would work well with their winter hats, but I could also imagine people catching on to packable sun hats with headphones, since world travelers are guaranteed to be traveling with an ipod, laptop, or something they’ll want to plug headphones into. And it just creates one less accessory to keep track of and organize.
If you know of some other interesting hat designs that are integrating technology, please let me know! I want to be able to let others know about this new trend and we will see if it catches more momentum or not!
I’m a huge fan of Parks and Recreation. Specifically, Ron Swanson and Tom Haverford’s characters crack me up. My wife and I never miss an episode (though because of our young kids and our small businesses, we end up catching the episode on Hulu over the weekend).
We were fortunate enough to catch the Producer’s cut of week’s episode on Hulu, which had an extended version of Tom Haverford and John Ralfio showing off their “End of the World” party. Their goal was to use every last penny of their $10,000 of remaining cash to throw the greatest party ever thrown. It included a tiger in a cage, 3 versions of a VIP area (even though the whole party was considered a VIP area), and a free Fedora room. Of course, since am an avid Fedorianista (yeah, I made that word up), and I am particularly obsessed right now with leather fedora hats and Indiana Jones Fedoras, I had to share this clip on my hat blog! In their party, they have a free Fedora room… “Got a head? Maybe you want a free fedora!” Their party ends up being a huge success, and Tom seems to even begin winning back his ex-girlfriend.
Anyway, without further ado, here’s their walkthrough of the party. Absolutely hilarious!!!
What do Princess Di, Payne Stewart, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Frank Sinatra have in common? They’re all well known for their great hats. That’s right! Whether it’s Frank Sinatra’s short brimmed fedoras, Sarah Jessica Parker’s variety of styles, or Payne Stewart’s classic golf caps, they are well known for sporting terrific hat fashion. And that great sense of accessory hat fashion has landed each of them in the Headwear Association’s Headwear Hall of Fame. Other notable members are Johnny Depp, Jackie O, Humphrey Bogart, and Samuel L. Jackson (many of which are rarely seen in public without a great unique hat).
Joining the ranks of many a hat-topped celebrity, this year’s inductees are Kid Rock, LL Cool J, Victoria Beckham, Fred Astaire, Marlene Deitrick and Lady Gaga. Kid Rock has stuck to primarily medium brimmed hats, whether it’s an upturned look like a homburg, or a downturned brim like this leather fedora hat. Lady Gaga should be a member of the Unorthodox Apparel Hall of Fame. But I suppose that shouldn’t exclude her from the headwear HOF… she DOES sport some otherworldly headwear nearly every time she is seen. LL Cool J has become famous for his Kangol cap, though he used to rock the doo-rag more frequently in previous years. Victoria Beckham has quite the variety of looks, from fedoras that look like they are being used as sun protection hats to cloche hats to the most amazing looking fascinators (like at the royal wedding last year).
It seems like only a matter of time before Justin Timberlake and Charlie Chaplin join the ranks. But they will have to wait at least until 2013. This years inductees will officially join the Headwear Hall of Fame in April.
It’s October and the NFL season is in full effect (thanks goodness!). October is also National Breast Cancer Awareness month, bringing an interesting pairing each year. To support breast cancer awareness (and quite possibly to increase their female fan base), NFL teams will be showing pink on their cleats, wristbands, chinstraps, and sideline hats. There are a variety of styles of Breast Cancer Awareness hats that coaches and players can chose from, but all of the styles have some pink coloring mixed into the design.
Not only will the players, coaches, and referees have some pink on their hats and accessories, but they will also be autographing and auctioning off pink merchandise to donate to the American Cancer Society.
This might seem like a stretch, but I wish baseball teams would do something to bring awareness and support to skin cancer. Skin cancer is the number one form of cancer and needs just as much awareness as breast cancer. If they wore some sort of special sun protection hats even for one week of the season, it could do a lot to bring awareness to the masses. Regardless, I commend the efforts to bring awareness to cancer in general. Below is a short news piece on the breast cancer awareness hats and accessories being worn in the NFL this month.
We just got through Snowpocalypse 2012 here in the Seattle area! I measured 6 full inches of snow, which is the most I’ve ever experienced in my 20 years of living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. We had a stretch of several days where we could barely get out of our cul-de-sac. With several small kids, that meant that we had plenty snow fun in our own neighborhood. Getting kids bundled up for the frigid air was no small feat, and it got me thinking about what the best options are for winter warmth. Here are my suggestions:
