I love hats, especially eco-friendly hats because they boost my style, and they limit harm to the environment.
Eco-Friendly Wool Felt Hat from Millinerium.
Today, eco-friendly hats are made in every style. The only real differences between hats made the eco-friendly way and ones made the traditional way are the materials they use and the processes used to make them
Right now, there are eco-friendly hats for every personality – whether you’re fashion sense is really flamboyant, chic, retro, urban or classic conservative.
When looking to buy an eco-made hat, the challenge is no longer finding the right style to suit your tastes and needs, but finding one at all! It’s often considered a specialty item, and most conventional retail stores don’t carry them. Online is often your best option, and I found three places that have some of the hugest collections of eco-hats: Millinerium, hats.com, and JustSayHats.com.
Millinerium
Millinerium is great because it’s a women’s boutique site from Ginger Strand, a designer exclusively devoted to making eco-made hats.
Millinerium’s collection runs the full gamut from street hats to fascinators (the tiny hats that Kate Middleton wears) to wedding headpieces.
Eco-Friendly ‘The Street’ hat from Millinerium.
My favorite hat from Millinerium is called ‘The Street,’ which has a great urban look, with inspirations from the 1960s and ‘70s. It’s also a little understated, which makes it perfect to wear with a lot of different coats, jackets, and accessories.
The Street hat’s black fabric contains reclaimed cotton-polyester, with the visor made from a thick interfacing that’s flexible, but still holds the visor in shape. It also has easy care instructions – hand wash cool, air dry or low tumble dry, and medium iron.
While ‘The Street’ hat is low maintenance, others, including felt hats, cocktail hats, and fascinators will need special care.
Overall, Millinerium has a lot of great materials that I really like, including organic cotton, reclaimed fabrics, hemp, and bamboo. I also like that the hats are made by people employed under Fair Trade practices.
hats.com
hats.com has one of the widest varieties of hat styles, accommodating all groups: men, women, and children. The site also has specialty links to vast collections of athletic, western, and outdoor/travel hats.
The eco-friendly collections are extensive, though solely for adults. These collections take a little effort to find. They’re embedded within the sub-pages for men and women. You see the categories for eco-friendly hats on the menus, along with conventional hat styles including: berets, derbies, fascinators, fedoras, millinery, pork pies, and straw hats.
‘Kangol Organic Canvas Mau Cap’ at hats.com.
My favorite hat from hats.com is the ‘Kangol Organic Canvas Mau Cap.’ One of the things I like best about it is that it has a compact, sporty look, but’s still a bit dressy, adding some extra style to a look.
I also obviously love that it is organic and that it comes in a huge array of colors, including: nectarine, beige, black, army green, navy blue, and white.
Equally, the company uses a wide range of materials to make its eco-collections, including: straw, raffia, and organic fabrics made from cotton, hemp, canvas, and linen.
Another great thing is that they have one of the best sections I’ve seen for giving details about measuring your head for a hat size.
JustSayHats.com
‘Dri Duck Organic Peregrine Falcon Hat’ at JustSayHats.com.
JustSayHats primarily specializes in caps, and carries them in an array of materials that runs the gamut from traditional to eco-made. The main page has a menu option for ‘Eco-Friendly Headwear.’
The eco-caps are made from an interesting array of materials, ranging from organic cotton and bamboo to materials that have been recycled, including: Jute coffee bags, plastic bottles, and acrylic.
As far as unique looking, my favorite cap is ‘Dri Duck Organic (Cotton) Peregrine Falcon Hat’ just because it’s really cool looking. They have more conventional plain looking caps with no embroidery, but I like this one.
Reader comments and input are always welcomed!