I was measuring a customer’s head for a flat cap last Tuesday when his wife pulled one off the rack, tried it on, and asked “why does the men’s one fit better than the one I bought at that boutique downtown that was supposedly sized for women.” There it was again. That sentence. Standing between us in the store while I had a tape measure literally in my hand. Let’s just lay this flat instead of me tiptoeing around like I do with customers who are being dimwittedly rude.
Here’s what I really think, not the palatable version companies feel they need to give you. Women’s hats are not smaller than men’s hats. They only appear to be smaller because of how the industry decided they should be.
Now let’s break that down. Heads come in many different sizes and those sizes do not separate themselves by gender. Literally measured dozens of women that have had 23 inch heads and men that have had 21 inch heads. Line up hats that fit both of them next to each other and ask me to determine which hat belongs to which customer by size alone and I’ll be incorrect half of the time because gender does not affect head size. Instead you have two completely different things happening that people have lumped together into “women’s hats are smaller than men’s hats” and it’s about time we tackle both of them because they being thrown together is how people end up in otherwise properly fitting hats that still look wrong on their head.
The Actual Circumference, Not the Assumption
First you need to know and care about your actual head circumference. The number that goes around your head, not the number you find on a size chart next to a tiny drawing of a hat. Adult male head circumference averages between 22 and 23 inches, female heads average between 21 and 22 inches and yes that is statistically significant enough that I will not tell you men and women have the exact same average head size because they don’t. But averages are not absolutes, they’re the middle of a spectrum with a huge variety of outliers on either side. Those outliers are larger than the difference between male and female averages. I’ve had male customers with heads small enough to qualify for most women’s hats, and female customers who needed a men’s sized XL because their head was a solid 23.5 inches. Asking that second woman to only shop the “women’s” section because ofoids attached to it is poor customer service masquerading as helpful.
The problem arises because far fewer women’s hat brands build their lines to include as much circumference variation as is common in menswear. It is not uncommon to find a brand of men’s fitted caps that ranges all the way from 21 inches up through 24, and past that if the brand is paying attention to female customers who need the larger sizes because they expect under one label to fit a wide variety of skull shapes and sizes. Women’s hats by contrast will often have just one size, or at best a small range that maxes out at 22.5 inches because…well because the people who designed that brand’s hats decided that nobody that buys off the women’s rack is going to need more than that. And that, friends, is not biology at work that’s someone in an office room who looked at the average and decided to use it as an immutable rule. So when she went into that boutique hat store and the women’s hat she tried on didn’t fit right, it wasn’t that her head was too big or too small for a “women’s” hat it’s that the company making that hat already decided how big a women’s head should be before she walked through the door.
The Crown Height and Brim Width Nobody Talks About
Now circumference is something that gets talked about a lot because it’s one number you can easily include on a tag. The other part of the equation is crown height and brim width. This is the part that actually changes how a hat fits on your head and looks on your face, and it’s where we get into the murkier parts of men’s hats vs women’s hats. Men’s hats, traditionally and most commonly, come with a taller crown and wider brim meant to sit higher on the head and farther away from the face. Women’s hats almost exclusively come with a shorter crown and narrower brim meant to skim closer to the face and “frame” it rather than sitting apart from it. That is a very real difference between the way hats are built and constructed that I will not argue against. But it’s an aesthetic decision, not a sizing guideline dictated by any physical aspect of the wearer’s body.
If the woman from at the beginning of this article has a longer face and strong nose she might actually look better in a taller men’s fedora than the prescribed women’s version, and I have had that exact conversation on the sales floor more times than I can count. Customer will try on “their size” of women’s hat and either look completely swallowed by the brim or just generally uncomfortable, then try one of our mens’ hats in a size down to compensate for the added crown height only to suddenly have everything pull together and look like they’ve got a hat that suits them. The husband I saw recently searching for hats for his daughter was absolutely correct that she needed a hat that flattered her face, he was just incorrectly using Women’s =/=/=/=/= Men’s as his guidepost.
A woman does not automatically need something smaller than a man just like a man with a small head does not automatically require what’s labeled Women’s. That guy’s daughter had a 22 inch head put her squarely in men’s medium range with plenty of hats that would fit.
Hell, the men’s versions we looked at had a slightly taller crown than what she was used to wearing and it improved the fit and look on her face more than he realized before he got hung up on labels. Hell, I’ve purchased men’s sized hats for myself because they fit my head better and have softer brims than women’s hats usually do. I’m female by the way, so I’m just as guilty of this as anyone.
I’ll say it: buy what fits and look good friends. Buy the hat that fits your head’s actual circumference and compliments your actual face shape. Treat the men’s or women’s label on the tag like it’s selling you one of those small soft coolers you find at sporting goods stores, not one of those large hard coolers. Those companies made two different sizes because it’s easier for them that way, not because your head is magically going to fit one or the other just because of your chromosomes. A “mens” fedora may well fit your head better and have the crown height needed to compliment your facial shape keep wearing it and don’t worry about where you found it. I’ve been fitting hats for long enough that I can spot a properly fitting hat on someone instantly and the tape measure doesn’t care if you’re male or female before it tells me your size.
Terry works a menswear shop floor in Newcastle and is a big and tall specialist himself. He writes about sizing that holds up, measures things before he believes the label, and has strong opinions about the phrase relaxed fit.
