Anatomy of a Hat – The 12 Parts of a Hat with Pictures

1. Crown

The crown is the portion of a hat above the brim which covers the top of your head and protects against the sun and other elements.

Crowns are designed with both higher and lower profiles. Higher profile hats offer more room to the head like fedora, Panama, and 10-gallon hats. Low-profile hats offer less room to the head and are also referred to as caps like Ivy, newsboys, ascots, and berets.

2. Creases, Dents, and Pinch

Creases or dents refer to indentations or dips done on the sides, back, and front of the crown. The pinch is the shape of the crease. For instance, the Monterey style crease is relatable to square pinch. 

Some hats are sold with rounded crowns with no shaping enabling customers to style their crowns the way they like. Historically, creases in the cowboy hats describe where the cowboy is from, even the ranch, by simply looking at it.

Creasing the crowns makes it easier to don and remove a hay by the crown instead of the brim. There are a variety of creases like cattleman, montena, pinch front, and brick crease.

3. Brim

The brim is the horizontal ledge of the hat protruding and encircling at the base of the crown to provide shade to the wearer.  Hats are designed with a variety of brims as follows,

• Short brims or stingy brims
• Wide brims
• Super-wide brims
• Floppy brims
• Upturned brims
• Flat brims
• Underwelt
• Foldable
• Downward brims

Check out this article to learn more about different type of hat brims.

Sometimes brims are referred to as bills, which is not correct. Bills, also known as visors, describes the protruding egde of the cap, which provides shade. The brims of hats provide greater sun coverage when compared to caps.

4. Underbrim

Underbrim refers to the part under the brim. Under brims can be designed in darker colors like green, black, grey, or brown to reduce the sun glare when you look at the sky or flight of a ball. On the other hand, straw hats sometimes have an under-brim splashed with a captivating pop of colors to give a vacation look!

5. Dip of the Brim

The dip is defined as the depth of the brim pulled down for styling and protective purposes.

6. Hat Band

The decorative strip or band, which is usually 1 inch tall and encircles the base of the crown, is called the hatband. They are also called leather ties, hat bands, ribbons, or braided cords. Hats like fedora, boater, 10 gallon, cowboy, Panama, and straw hats will look complete with a hatband surrounding them.

Hat bands are made up of cotton, wool, nylon, silk, leather, and even beads.  In earlier days, hat bands were used to make the fit tighter for the wearer, today it is generally just a fashion statement. 

7. Decoration

Sometimes hats are also embellished with decorations like beaded strips, feathers, tassels, and buckles.

Fun fact: In earlier days of swordplay, men used to wear hats with feathers on the left side, which represents the permitting of freedom and the chance to tell the world about their success. And today, it is still followed as a gentleman’s etiquette. Women should wear their hats with feathers on the right side.

8. Sweatband

Every hat is designed with a sweatband lining the under brim, which consists of two main functions.

1. The sweatband is always made up of moisture-wicking fabric to absorb the sweat from the scalp and prevent deterioration to the inner lining of the hat.

2. The sweatband adds more comfort to the wearer, ensures a good fit, and keeps the hat in shape.

Usually, the sweatband of hats is made up of genuine leather, sheepskin, suede, or cotton. Modern sweatbands are also designed to provide extra elasticity for a more comfortable fit.

9. Sweatband Bow

Before the 1970s, men’s hats were usually designed with a sweatband bow on the back of the seam of the sweatband. The actual use of the sweatband bow indicates the back of the hat to the wearer when putting it on.

10. Liner

Liner is the inner layer of the hat that adds warmth, stability and blocks sweat and stains, which can lead to the natural deterioration of the outer crown. Commonly, hat linings are made up of cotton, satin, silk, or other synthetic fabrics.

11. Taper

Taper is a term that describes how much narrower the upper crown gets when compared to the lower crown. Some hats are designed with a tapered appearance; some hats come non tapered, looking straight from the upper crown to the lower crown.

12. Brim Binding

The binding of the brim refers to the trimmed edge of the hats’ brim. They are three main types of brim binding which are often made of leather and silk.

• Bound edge- Brim is designed with the ribbon on edge, adds strength to the brim edge, and looks more appealing.
• Raw edge- The edge of the brim is shaped with a razor blade or scissors and is comparably not too stable to maintain the shape of the brim edge, but still, people love it.
• Welted edge/ stitched edge- The fabric over the brim is folded over the brim and sewn. This adds more strength to the brim edge and retains the look of the edge longer.