Best Hats for Autumn: Flat Caps, Tweed, Wax & Felt

The Autumn Hat Guide: What to Wear as the Weather Turns

There is a point every year when the Panama goes back into its box and the tweed cap comes down from the peg.

Autumn is perhaps the best season for hats. It is cool enough for wool and felt without yet requiring the full armour of winter, and the colours of the season seem almost made for tweed, leather and fur felt.

It is also the time when a hat starts earning its keep. A good autumn hat is not simply something to finish an outfit. It needs to cope with cold mornings, sudden rain, wind and the general unpredictability of British weather.

So, which hat should you choose?

The everyday choice: a tweed flat cap

If you want one hat to see you through autumn, a good wool flat cap is difficult to beat.

Tweed has been used for outdoor clothing for generations for good reason. Wool is naturally insulating, comfortable and remarkably practical, while the woven patterns and colours work particularly well with autumn clothing.

A traditional flat cap has a neat, relatively low profile and works easily with everything from a wax jacket to an overcoat.

Grey herringbone is perhaps the safest place to start. It works with navy, green, brown, black and denim and does not feel particularly formal or particularly country.

For something with more character, look at Donegal tweeds with their distinctive flecks of colour, or the deeper shades found in Harris and Yorkshire tweeds.

The beauty of good tweed is that you notice more in it the closer you look.

For a little more character: the eight-panel cap

The eight-panel cap — sometimes called a newsboy, baker boy or button-top cap — has a fuller shape than a traditional flat cap.

Eight individual panels meet at the button on the crown, giving it more volume and a slightly more relaxed silhouette.

It is a style with plenty of history behind it, but it does not need to look like costume. Worn with jeans, boots, a jumper or a simple coat, it is an extremely easy everyday hat.

Our Shelby caps are a good example. The fuller crown gives them character without becoming exaggerated, which is probably one reason the shape has remained so popular.

If you already own a traditional flat cap and want something a little different this autumn, this is where we would look next.

For British rain: a waxed cotton cap

There are autumn days when beautiful tweed is not quite the point.

If you spend a lot of time outdoors — walking the dog, working outside, watching sport or simply living somewhere where the weather rarely reads the forecast — waxed cotton makes a great deal of sense.

Waxed cloth was developed to repel water long before modern synthetic waterproof fabrics arrived, and it still does the job extremely well.

A waxed cap has another advantage: it improves with wear.

The surface gradually picks up subtle creases and changes in tone, giving each cap a character of its own.

Our Huntsman uses waxed cotton in an eight-panel button-top shape, combining a traditional silhouette with a fabric designed for bad weather.

It is the sort of hat you can leave by the door and reach for without thinking.

For something that gets better with age: leather

Leather occupies a slightly different place.

It is practical, certainly, but the appeal is as much about how it ages.

A good leather cap softens with wear and develops a patina, the small marks and variations in colour that make an old leather jacket, pair of boots or bag more interesting than when it was new.

Our Kilburn uses brown leather in the same fuller eight-panel construction, making it particularly good with denim, waxed cotton, heavy knitwear and wool coats.

If tweed is the classic autumn choice, leather is the one with a little more attitude.

For smarter days: the felt fedora

Autumn is when a felt fedora really begins to make sense again.

During summer a structured felt hat can simply be too warm. Once the temperature drops, however, it becomes both practical and surprisingly easy to wear.

The key is not to save it for occasions.

A brown or grey fedora worn with an overcoat is obviously a classic combination, but it works equally well with denim, boots or a wax jacket.

Wool felt is a good everyday option. Fur felt is lighter, softer and generally holds its shape better over many years of wear.

A well-made fur felt fedora is therefore less of a seasonal purchase and more the sort of hat that slowly becomes yours.

Our Shirwell is a good example: traditional in construction, but simple enough to wear without feeling overdressed.

Harris, Donegal or Yorkshire tweed?

One of the pleasures of choosing an autumn cap is the cloth itself.

Not all tweed is the same.

Harris Tweed is handwoven in the Outer Hebrides and protected by law. It tends to have wonderful depth of colour and texture and is particularly well suited to colder weather.

Donegal tweed comes from Ireland and is famous for the little flecks of contrasting colour scattered through the cloth. From a distance it can look understated; close up, there is much more going on.

Yorkshire tweed, including cloth woven by Abraham Moon, draws on one of Britain’s great woollen manufacturing traditions. Herringbones, checks and muted country shades make particularly versatile cap cloths.

There is no one that is “best”.

Part of the pleasure is simply choosing the cloth you like.

What colour works best in autumn?

Autumn is forgiving when it comes to colour.

Brown, olive, rust, charcoal, navy and grey all sit naturally with the season and work particularly well with wool, denim, corduroy and waxed cotton.

If you are buying your first hat, however, we would resist the temptation to overthink it.

Look at the coat or jacket you wear most often.

If it is navy, try grey, brown or a flecked Donegal.

If it is green or olive, brown and warm grey work beautifully.

If it is brown, try charcoal, navy or a contrasting lighter herringbone.

A hat does not need to match your clothes. It only needs to belong with them.

Do you need a different hat for winter?

Not necessarily.

A substantial wool tweed cap can comfortably take you from the first cool days of September through most of a British winter.

The distinction is less about a date on the calendar and more about cloth weight and what you are doing.

Someone walking across Dartmoor in January may want something heavier than someone commuting across London.

That is why we tend to think in terms of use rather than strict seasons.

Choose the hat that suits the life you actually lead.

One good hat is better than several mediocre ones

We have always thought hats should be worn rather than collected for best.

A good cap gets shaped slightly by the person wearing it. Tweed softens. Leather develops a patina. Felt settles into its shape.

After a few autumns it stops looking like a new hat and starts looking like your hat.

That, to us, is rather the point.

If you are uncertain about style, cloth or size, get in touch with us at info@gambleandgunn.com. We have spent many years fitting hats and are always happy to help you choose.