Different types of Men's Hats and How to Wear Them – Part I of III

Written by Marco Raynault on April 21, 2009

Hats. They were so popular decades ago and then it all stopped. Times change as they say. The good news is that they are definitely back. You’ll see them touted around in Hollywood by the likes of Johny Depp. The question, though, is what type of hats are there and which one would work for you? We’re going to break this post up into three parts:

1) Hat Nomenclature
2) Different Types of Hats
3) What type of hat works best for you?

Before going into the different types of hats there are and which ones would work best for you, we should first talk about hat nomenclature. In order to truly understand how to shop for a hat, you have to learn about the different parts of a hat so you can converse in the same language of the sales merchant at an upscale hat store.

Crown: This is the top part of the hat that covers the top of the head.

Puggarree: The word Puggarree is something that you will hear more in Britain. In North America, it’ll likely be referred to as a sweatband or even hatband. This is typically a band or ribbon that runs around the bottom torso of the hat. This band can typically be adjusted with a cord on the inside of the hat. The hat shown above has a 6 pleat puggarree.

Peak(British) or Visor (American): This is the stiff projection at the front of the hat that shields the eyes from the sun and rain.

Brim: This is the stiff portion of the hat at the bottom of the crown and all around the circumfrance horizontally.

In the next part of this 3 part series, we’ll talk about the different types of hats that there are and use the terminology explained in this post to describe the hats.

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