Straw Boater Hat Guide - Formal Summer Hats for Men

About this video

The Gazette team provides a comprehensive guide to the straw boater hat, covering its construction from Sennit straw, its rich history from the 1860s through its peak popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and its continued use in specific contexts like British school uniforms and theatrical performances. They offer practical styling advice for wearing boaters with confidence today, recommending them primarily with blazers or summer suits and discussing how brim width complements different face shapes.

Key takeaways

• The Gazette team argues that straw boaters are formal summer hats roughly equivalent to Homburgs in formality, and work best paired with blazers, summer suits, or even black-tie ensembles in warm weather
• The Gazette team explains that boaters were originally a women’s hat in the 1860s before being adopted by men in the 1880s and becoming associated with FBI agents, Princeton’s band, and various entertainers and public figures
• The Gazette team recommends considering face shape when wearing a boater, noting that wider brims suit long oval faces while narrower brims complement rounder faces, and emphasizes that confidence is key to pulling off this less-common hat style today

Episode details: published June 24, 2019 · 67K views · 10:28 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The style guidance summarized here is the Gentleman’s Gazette team’s own teaching and opinion, presented for education; product recommendations are theirs, not ours. Summaries are written by Self Growth Videos from each video itself.

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