I suspect this is an annual question...
I'm very aware I need to protect my scalp from the suun now the natural protection has retreated. I have an original style Tilley hat the i love, but its too hot and sweaty for the summer months.
Are the "summer" style Tilleys worth it, in terms of coolness, or do i need to be looking for something Tilley shaped but made of artisan straw by orphaned elephants in Africa?
You want something Tilley shaped but made of straw from the Indiana Jones ride at EuroDisney, bought for the day but still good 20 years later.
I bought one from a hat shop in Dorset.
Has a fabric brim and top, but the sides are entirely wide space mesh. A bit like this one
HATSANDCAPS.CO.UK Keeps my head shaded and i get a nice breeze through it too.
I suspect the tilley ones are a bit warm than that.
Panama hat.
Watching with interest. Also rocking the cue ball style and a belief that all hats look ridiculous on me. I have an unfeasibly large collection of tatty baseball caps. I need to up my sartorial game but am a bit clueless and wary of looking a bigger muppet than usual.
You need a selection!
✔️ Tilley style
✔️ Panama
✔️ Aussie Bush Hat
…and Peaky Blinders cap for the soft-top! 🤣
Hats are great!
Except baseball caps for me - I look a right knobber in them!
A parasol is what you need.
Or a parasol hat if you intend to carry shopping.
HTH 😊
I've got the summer tilley and the normal one it was definitely worth it , often discounted at go outdoors too
I have one of these, which I find keeps me cool*
this is an even cooler style:
I also always have a bandana in a bag/pocket/round my neck. They are so versatile in summer and winter.
*in both senses, dude.
Get a Tilley?
Lifetime guarantee up to and including "it blew off my head and down a ravine, can I have another one please?"
Panama hat from Christy.
As the average toilet bowl has more hair on it than the top of my bonce, and my skin tone betrays my Irish heritage, I have a huge selection of hats
Now I’m over 50, I thought it only right that I own a proper Panama hat, but most of the time I wear one of these
Except baseball caps for me – I look a right knobber in them
So do most people. Certainly people of… ahem…. a certain age. I’m with Pete Docharty (a man who knows a thing or two about hats) on this one.
The lyrics from ‘a Time For Heroes’…
He knows there's fewer more distressing sights than that
Of an Englishman in a baseball cap
IMO it is wide brimmed hats that look ridiculous on an Englishman (fine on an American or Mexican) although they obviously have sun protection advantages.
For that reason I would go for a pork pie hat - think of how cool Gene Hackman looked in The French Connection. Obviously a straw pork pie hat for the summer.
Gene Hackman, that well-known Englishman?
We sell these hats and they are the business.
The wind goes through the weave and I've never had a hint of a burnt head even when in the tropics.
Ps we also sell the colourful jackets!
Very Michael Portillo 😃
Why do you want Tilley hat style but not Tilley?
Get a Stetson!
Plenty of different styles to suit different budgets.
Why do you want Tilley hat style but not Tilley?
My standard Tilley is too hot in summer, so i was trying to find out if their summer/airflow hats were worth it or if there were alternatives
IMO it is wide brimmed hats that look ridiculous on an Englishman
What about on Scotsman or Welsh?
Try this, from Buff, I find they work well (have a couple)
I have a Tilley hemp hat, always wanted one since I read a story about one being eaten by an elephant, crapped out and (after a wash), being perfectly fine.
Best hat I own for the summer. It's brilliant.
I've been bald for donkey's years, hate the feel of the sun burning on top of my head, work outdoors, naturally pale celtic complexion and have had malignant melanoma. So, I wear a hat but the majority make me sweaty which I hate so it's usually a straw hat for the breeze to blow through and they are the ones I can wear most comfortably for a long time. But be aware, a certain amount of sunlight does get through them so I wear sun block as well. The ones with the holed patterns in the side as most have do leave you vulnerable. I once came back from a long days walking in blistering sun to find the hat pattern had been branded around my head, that was a conversation piece in the pub later 🙂
Tilley Airflo on my head right now, top purchase around 4 years ago
Tilley Airflo on my head right now, top purchase around 4 years ago
And there is a discount on at the moment, which swung it for me
For that reason I would go for a pork pie hat – think of how cool Gene Hackman looked in The French Connection
I’m reckoning that’s when it comes to closely resembling iconic figures in statement headgear, the average STWer (and I include myself in this) is less Gene Hackman in The French Connection or Thomas Shelbey in Peaky Blinders and more Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em 😂
Some on here like to think they wear their beret like Wolfie in the Tooting Popular Liberation Front, but i suspect it's more Frsnk Spencer
I got this 'cowboy hat' the other year. I'm rarely brave enough to wear it due to the piss taking, but it does the job magnificently. Otherwise I have a couple of baseball caps that do the job, but have no where near enough coverage for proper sun.
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[/img][/url]"Some on here like to think they wear their beret like Wolfie in the Tooting Popular Liberation Front, but i suspect it’s more Frsnk Spencer
I’ve long suspected, from both his geographical location and his oft-espoused political opinions, that our Croydon Comrade, Ernesto, is in fact a certain well known person posting under a pseudonym
Now that he’s revealed his choice of headwear, he’s now confirmed my suspicions were correct
You want one of those hats with the propeller on top...you know from Paul Hogan show..alright mate..ha ha ha
My standard Tilley is too hot in summer, so i was trying to find out if their summer/airflow hats were worth it or if there were alternatives
Oh in that case we have airflo ones (plastic mesh round the top) which work a treat. Used them for a decade in Japan where the ventilation really helped. My wife just managed to wash out most of the mould/staining too, they are almost like new.
Just bought one of these for the summer holiday (well, honeymoon). I’m rubbish in the sun so need something to keep it at bay. Might look like a bit of a chuff in it but it’s nice and cool and has good coverage.
I’ve got one of these, specifically for summer - I think I got it at a festival, but eBay do similar.
I mostly wear one of these cloth caps, though, light, comfy, and easy to fold up and stuff in a pocket or bag.
Wide brimmed hats are a bad idea if on the bike. They seem to channel wasps/bees/insects right to your forehead.
I’m rarely brave enough to wear it due to the piss taking, but it does the job magnificently.
Honestly, bollocks to them. They'll stop taking the piss as soon as they realise you're not rising to it. You know, like the schoolchildren they are.
Now that he’s revealed his choice of headwear, he’s now confirmed my suspicions were correct
Thanks binners, I take that as a huge compliment 😎
Both Alexei Sayle's mod dress sense and his politics is something which I can chime with.
And Ullo John is my favourite novelty song ever. It proper warms the cockles of your heart to see a Scouser so enthusiastically embracing Sarf Landan culture.
If it’s good enough for Bob,it’s good enough for me 😊 The Stetson Fairway 👍
Thanks binners, I take that as a huge compliment 😎
It was certainly intended to be Ernesto. I wasn’t joking. It’s how I’ve always pictured you
Not that it's any use to you unless you're going to Santorini, but I have a straw fedora that I bought in Santorini about ten years ago that I use to protect my ever enlargening sunroof.
I'm similar to the OP , inn hat I've had an 'original' Tilley hat for over 20 years. It's been in the Amazonian jungle for real too. But also agree it gets sweaty when hot.
I got the aeromesh (or whatever its called) Tilley hat about 6 or 7 years ago and defo find it better in summer (though Mrs robs it often and I have to use the original). I'd defo be happy to buy another.
The Panama hat is reserved for attendance at test cricket 🏏
It’s how I’ve always pictured you
LOL! And you were probably even closer than you realise! I do have a short brim hat in the Gene Hackman/French Connection style (I usually only wear it in the rain though) and I tend to wear plastic rimmed sunglasses all year round (partly because of eye issues) so with the two combined I have had Blues Brothers comments directed at me 😎
In the late 90s I visited Papua New Guinea. I picked up a Graham Gooch cricket hat in a store for 1 Kina. It was great.
somehow I lost it on another foreign trip.
I replaced it with a Tilley hat. No retreats.
Tilley replaced the original hat after about 10 years when the front of it rotted/wore through. Only postage and photos of the defaced hat needed.
The replacement is still going strong about 12 years later.
recommended. Though I’d think about getting mosquito mesh for the brass eyelets depending on where I was going.
