Types of Hats for Women

A close-fitting cap with no brim, and the most worn hat there is. Ours are cut deeper than a standard fashion beanie so they sit at the hairline and stay there, front and nape.

Good for almost anything: the yard, the gym, errands, the couch. If you do not know where to start, start here. A plain beanie is the hat that gets worn on the days you are not thinking about hats at all.

See beanies →

A beanie with extra length, so the spare fabric gathers and slouches behind. Many have rolls or soft pleats along the top, which gives the whole thing a layered look rather than a flat one.

The slouch does something useful as well as something stylish. It puts height and volume above the crown, which is exactly the shape a head of hair used to make. On a bare head that reads as fullness rather than flatness.

See slouchy beanies →

A timeless cap, and by timeless we mean thousands of years. Caps of this shape turn up again and again through history, which makes every other hat on this page a recent invention.

It is a soft round cap with no brim and very little internal structure, which is why it suits a sensitive scalp. There is less in it to press against you. It is also the most forgiving shape to wear, because there is no right angle for it.

Worn pushed back and pulled to one side, a beret looks relaxed and deliberate. Worn centered and flat, it reads a great deal more severe. If you want full coverage at the front, keep it forward rather than back.

See berets →

The one people are surprised to need. A head without hair loses warmth quickly at night, and a cotton or bamboo sleep cap fixes that without anything digging in.

What matters here is the inside, not the outside. Look for a smooth finish against the scalp and as few seams as possible, because scalp sensitivity often arrives alongside hair loss and a seam you would never notice through hair is a different thing on bare skin.

They travel further than their name suggests. Plenty of women wear them for a hospital stay, after surgery, around the house, out to the garden, and under another hat for a little extra fullness.

And some of ours are prettier than they need to be, trimmed with lace or a bow. Add a scarf or a brooch and a sleep cap will go out to dinner with you, which is not a sentence we expected to write either.

See sleep caps →

A soft rounded cap gathered into a short bill at the front, worn by working men in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and comfortably fashionable again now. You will find it in every fabric there is, from summer cotton to winter wool.

The gathers are the useful part. They give the crown real fullness, which is the shape hair used to make, so a newsboy tends to look considerably better on a bare head than a flat cap does. It can be almost flat, or made with a fuller and more rounded crown, and the fuller ones do more of that work.

Many of ours are cut to come down to the hairline rather than perch, so they cover completely, and many have a hidden band at the back that draws the fit in without pinching.

See newsboy caps →

An American institution, and older than most people think. Caps with a rounded crown and a front bill were already being worn by teams in the late 1850s and 1860s, and the Brooklyn Excelsiors gave their version its name. Brims lengthened through the 1920s and 1930s, and the stiff structured front familiar today came later.

A standard cap is cut to sit over hair, which means it can leave the hairline showing. Ours are made in a soft stretchy fabric and cut deeper, so they look like an ordinary ball cap and cover completely. Some have hair sewn into the cap itself.

A cap is also the easiest style to layer. A scarf tied underneath, a headband, or a wig all work beneath one, so it is a good hat for the days you want a different amount of hair showing.

See baseball caps → · Hats with hair →

Somewhere between a baseball cap and a newsboy. The tell is the top: a cadet cap has one flat rounded panel where a ball cap has seams and a newsboy has gathers.

That flat crown makes it the neatest of the three, and the easiest to wear somewhere you want to look put together rather than casual.

See all hats →

A brim with no crown. If you have hair, the open top is the coolest thing you can wear in real heat while still keeping the sun off your face.

If you do not have hair, a visor works as a second layer rather than a first. Put a scarf or a soft cap on, then the visor over the top. You get shade for your face without adding the bulk of a second full crown, which is the real advantage.

See visors →

Irish, and younger than you would think. Farmers and fishermen were wearing them in the early 1900s, made from unwashed wool so that the sheep's own lanolin kept the rain out. The English upper classes took them up soon after for country walks, fishing and shooting, which is a fair distance for a working hat to travel. It has been casual, then fashionable, then casual again, several times over.

The brim is the whole point. Wear it down for shade, up all the way round to open your face, or up on one side for something with a bit of attitude. Few hats change this much for this little effort.

See bucket hats →

Closely associated with the Paris milliner Caroline Reboux, and one of the defining shapes of the 1920s. Film and fashion keep coming back to it because nothing else looks quite like it.

A cloche is meant to sit low on the forehead, which is unusual and useful. Most hats need bringing down to the hairline; this one is designed for it, so it covers completely without looking as though it is trying to.

It suits a longer face particularly well, because the low brim shortens it.

See cloche hats →

Named after Fédora, an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou, with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role as a Russian princess. The play was a sensation and everything associated with it became fashionable, so when a New York hatter wanted a name for a new soft felt hat in 1883, he borrowed hers.

A fedora is defined by its creased crown, usually pinched at the front, and its brim. That crease is the shape that adds definition to a soft face. Fedoras vary a good deal in crown depth and where they sit, and many of ours are softer and cut deeper than a traditional structured version.

Among the brimmed styles here, a fedora is the one most likely to stop short of the hairline, particularly at the nape. It is made to sit on the head rather than be pulled down like a soft cap. A wide headband or a soft liner worn underneath extends it down to the hairline and closes the gap, and it will hold the hat more securely while it is at it. If full coverage matters to you, buy the two together.

See fedoras →

The oldest job a hat has ever done. People have been wearing brimmed hats for shade since antiquity, and the design has not needed much improving.

For real protection, look for a brim of about three inches or more all the way round rather than only at the front, and a weave tight enough that you cannot see daylight through the crown. A hat shades but it does not seal, so sunscreen still goes on everything the brim does not cover.

This matters more during treatment. Some cancer medicines make skin far more sensitive to sunlight than it used to be, and a scalp that has spent its whole life under hair burns easily once it is exposed. Ask your care team what applies to you.

When sun protection is not the point, the brim becomes something to play with. Turn it up all the way round, or on one side, and the same hat that was doing a job outside is doing something else entirely.

See sun hats →

Less a shape than an occasion. A dressy hat is any of the above made in a finer material, with a little more structure or trim, for church, a wedding, a lunch or an evening out.

Worth having one. There is a particular relief in getting dressed for something and knowing your head is already sorted, and a good dress hat does that in a way an everyday cap cannot.

Cloche hats · All women's hats →

The one nobody thinks about until they need it. A brim that keeps rain off your face, in a fabric that does not mind getting wet.

If you wear a wig, a rain hat is doing a second job as well: it keeps the wig dry, which can save you a wash and a restyle when the weather turns.

See rain hats →

Wrapped turbans have ancient roots across the Near East, and the word reaches us much later, through French. What we sell is a cap constructed to look like wrapped fabric, so you get the look without doing any wrapping.

It has become the everyday choice for a great many women with hair loss, and the reason is range. The same shape works in cotton for a Tuesday, in jersey for the beach, and in velvet or silk with an evening dress. Very few styles stretch that far.

A turban is also one of the easier styles to have altered if you are between sizes, because it is sewn fabric rather than a built shape.

See turbans →

Traditionally a long strip of fabric worn around the head, though the word covers a lot of ground now. Many of ours fasten or slip on rather than needing a traditional tie, so they go on in one movement.

They are among the flattest things you can wear, which makes them an excellent base layer. Wear one alone, or under a brimmed hat where a thicker cap would add too much bulk.

See head wraps →

Not hats at all, but worn the same way and too useful to leave out. A scarf gives you more looks than any cap, because the same square of fabric ties a dozen ways.

If tying is not something you want to take on, and plenty of women do not, pre-tied scarves are made to slip on finished. You get the look of a tied scarf without the learning.

Head scarves · Pre-tied scarves · Bandanas

How to tie a head scarf → · How to tie a bandana →