Bucket or beret – which summer hat should you wear?

As someone who has never identified as a “hat person”, summer headgear has always felt like an afterthought – something you toss into the shopping basket along with mosquito repellent and blister plasters in the last-minute holiday rush.

Now, though, we are in “the era of the personality hat”, as the American fashion writer Leandra Medine Cohen declared earlier this year, offering up Prada’s feathered military cap for consideration. No longer exclusively for practical purposes, hats are fast becoming the main event, as the AW24 catwalk collections proved. From Chanel’s supersized floppy sun hats in ice-cream colours and Jil Sander’s swimming-cap styles to Moschino’s button-down shirts repurposed as turbans, designers were brimming with ideas. Not for nothing was the Paris 2024 Olympic mascot an anthropomorphised Phrygian cap – the emblem of French revolutionaries.

The fashion consultant and former Net-a-Porter buyer Laura Vidrequin Roso is rarely seen without a hat. “I pack six with me for the summer, which sounds excessive, but I wear them every day.” In her current rotation is a colourful crochet bucket style by Barcelona-based brand Pardo Hats (from £139.87), whose handcrafted buckets, berets and embroidered skull caps each take between 10 to 50 hours to make. “It’s great for when you just want to wear a white shirt or a simple dress, but still include a fun accessory,” she says.  

Stylist and “hat fanatic” Rachel Bakewell’s preferred beach head covering is a floral-print canvas bucket style by Danish brand Ganni, which fastens underneath the chin. “I love that you can tie [the straps] in a bow, so you can wear it while you’re swimming in the sea. I suppose it’s quite childlike in a way – I just always feel so protected.” Even better, unlike straw competitors, a canvas hat will fold up in a suitcase and can be flung into a washing machine at the end of the holiday. Ukrainian milliner Ruslan Baginskiy has even perfected a woven raffia hat with tan leather ties that can be transformed into a bucket bag ($350).

Toteme woven sun hat, £240, mytheresa.com

Ruslan Baginskiy cotton canvas bucket hat, £225, mytheresa.com

Spending summer in the city? Perhaps a minimalist cloche is for you. Toteme offers a sleek woven version (£240, mytheresa.com) while Vidrequin Roso is a fan of The Row’s sold-out Carrol hat (£640). “What I love about it is that the weave is really tight so it holds its shape well,” says Vidrequin Roso, who pairs it with beach dresses or printed sarongs to avoid veering into costume-drama territory.

Then there are baseball caps, which have evolved from team-sports essentials to stealth-luxe signifiers and bad-hair-day saviours. Los Angeles-based athleisure brand Sporty & Rich’s slogan baseball caps have had a sell-through rate of 86 per cent for spring/summer 2024. “Our hats are inspired by the [American sports apparel brand] ’47 fit, which I believe strikes the perfect balance between style and comfort,” says founder Emily Oberg, who likes to wear hers with a tailored outfit “to keep it sophisticated yet relaxed”.

Rejina Pyo organic cotton Sandy headscarf, £125

Sporty & Rich nylon Crown Logo hat, £48

And if you’re really hat-averse? Consider a bandana. Designer Rejina Pyo, whose hand-crocheted Sandy headscarves have been popular with customers this summer (£125), praises their versatility. “They can be worn as a headscarf or a neck scarf, making them a perfect addition for summer styling.” The Cut’s fashion news writer Danya Issawi, who styled her red paisley bandana with a sporty mesh jersey and ballet flats at the recent edition of Copenhagen Fashion Week, is a fan of a bandana’s “bucolic” charm. “I always feel like I’m about to embark on some sort of journey into the countryside when in reality I’m running around New York City doing errands.”