winter hats

Today’s reader question has to do with finding professional winter hats, and we are eager to hear what our readers say…

Will you please consider writing a post about winter hats? It seems like an appropriate time to cover winter hats, especially with the snow storms crossing the country this week. I often walk to work but have never been able to find a suitable winter hat. I need a hat that covers my ears as well as the top of my head. I have found that the cute hats don’t cover my ears. Another frustration is that the winter hats I have all flatten my hair. Perhaps that is inevitable. However, my hair tends to be curly and after putting a hat on, my hair is flat and straight by the time I get to work.

Tricky. First, we have yet to find a functional winter hat that doesn’t look dorky. But, given that a) we grew up in the Midwest b) went to college in a city where windchill is a major consideration, and c) often walk to/fro work in NYC, we don’t discriminate against “dorky” hats — it’s cold outside, yo. And even if someone recently said it’s a myth that 80% of your heat escapes from your head… well, we don’t believe it. To make matters worse, this author’s hair seems to get curlier with each passing year — and it now seems impossible to wear many of our old hats without totally killing the curls. So, like we said, we are eager to hear what our readers say.

In the past (when our hairstyle was blown straight) we went with floppy (not felted) berets. They’re easy to keep in the pocket of jackets (one can “live” in every coat; also, a hat you can stuff in your pocket is hard to lose), and, as a classic style, the dork factor is on an acceptable scale. We just lost the only one we had with a silky lining, though — which seemed to be the only one that didn’t crush the curls. So we’re in the market for one. After a quick survey of the market for hats on Shopstyle, we like the looks of this knit hat (pictured above and at right) — non-itchy, fleece lining, looks cute — but doubt it would work well with our curly hair. Solid Knit Hat, available at Athleta for $40.