Boater Hat

A boater is a flat topped straw hat with a flat brim, stiffened until it holds its shape with no help at all from your head. A grosgrain ribbon wraps the base of the crown, usually finished in a small bow or knot at the back.

Sennit straw makes that rigidity possible. Straw is plaited flat first, in long braided strips, then the strips are wound and sewn edge to edge into a disc for the crown and a ring for the brim, and the whole hat is set hard. That construction is why a boater has none of the give you feel in a floppy sun hat: bend the brim and it resists all the way, rather than folding softly back into place.

A sun hat shares the straw and the outdoor season but none of the stiffness, since its whole job is to flop and shade a wide circle around your face rather than hold one flat line. A fedora is closer in formality, but its crown carries a crease and its brim snaps at an angle, where a boater stays flat on both counts, top and brim alike. The nearest match for sheer rigidity is a cloche: both are blocked hard and both refuse to stretch by so much as a hair, though a cloche drops low over the skull while a boater sits up and away from it.

Summer formal wear is a boater's home ground: garden parties, regattas and any occasion that used to call for rowing club colors on the ribbon still suit it today. Anyone after a soft, forgiving hat should look elsewhere, because there is no give anywhere in this one. Rain is the honest weakness, since soaked straw loses its stiffness fast and rarely dries back to the same flat line.

Order the exact size, measured with a tape a finger's width above the ears and read in inches or centimeters, because a hat this rigid cannot be coaxed even a quarter size wider. Store it crown up on a shelf rather than stacked under other hats, since weight on the flat top can crack the straw disc, and keep it away from damp storage that softens the brim.