In another thread (maybe on this forum) someone remarked that a baseball cap is a good sign that tourist is an American. That got me wondering what hats are popular in other countries? If I were wandering around the UK, France, Germany, etc, what hats would I most likely see people wearing?
Which is kind of funny because, as an American, I think I could go weeks without seeing someone wearing a baseball cap.
I’ve traveled to countries outside the US and have seen baseball caps on locals. Also the knitted pullover caps are somewhat common. One thing that caught my attention was Asian women wearing widely brimmed straw hats to keep the sun off, usually accompanied by long-sleeved shirts and maybe even gloves and face masks.
Homburgs. Trilbies for the devil may care. The entire country abandoned baseball caps after the MAGA debacle of ‘16.
In Spain there are some versions which are considered “local”, often “folksy”, such as the Cordobés or the gorrilla (typical of Madrid, and seriously Google: it’s not a gorilla). The boina (beret) is worn mainly on the northern half of the country; regional cops in Euskadi and Navarre wear it red. My forefathers wore it red and my foremothers white as a show of political affiliation (Traditionalist/Carlista); people of a different affiliation wore them red as well (Basque independentists): nowadays you can see civilians wearing them in many different colors but white is extremely rare because of the political meaning (red’s contradictory political meanings make it a show of regional pride rather than a political statement).
Baseball caps are sold as touristy items, but also as safety caps (for situations where you need something to shade your eyes but not a hard hat). They’re often worn by people trying to look “gang” and by long-distance drivers; these will usually have them on in addition to sunglasses because that Spanish sun comes with Spanish glare.
Other types are mainly worn in the summer: pamelas (wide-brimmed hats, in straw or lace) for the women, thin-brimmed hats for both genders, or whatever hit the wearer’s fancy.
Out of time: the kind of headgear that’s worn exclusively in winter gets a different generic name in Spanish from the stuff in my previous post: they’re gorros, not sombreros. We wear all sort of knit caps as well as scarfs, but we think of them as a completely different category from all those previous ones. Many stores which stock one kind will not stock the other, and many which stock both will have them in different sections.
Folks in Australia wear hats because if they don’t, the sun will kill them.
Kids at school aren’t allowed to play outside unless they have brought a wide-brimmed hat in their school bag. People playing outdoor sports in the summer months ALL wear hats. You’d be a fool not to.
There is no one particular variety of hat that is more popular than another, although sub-sects of the community tend to adopt their own special one.
That being said, the archetypal Australian hat is supposedly the Akubra, favoured by the outback stockmen (and women), the bourgeois weekend-farmer, and the wanker politicians when they are campaigning in rural seats.
I’m one of the people who mentioned baseball caps as being somewhat unusual in the UK, but that was in a specific reference to white people over forty in Bath in May and not wanting to look American. White people in the UK who go to the city of Bath in May don’t wear baseball caps. (Why does that sound like it should be a mnemonic?)
In general, in the UK, it wouldn’t be *that *weird to see someone wearing a baseball cap, but it would never blend into the background. You’d notice that they were wearing a baseball cap. Even for someone under forty, its unusual. In some of the warmer states in the US, you wouldn’t notice anything. In California it seemed to be the norm.
Hats that are common here are mostly winter hats - bobble hats, beanies, etc. Some men wear them year-round but it’s a statement.
Flat caps, for men, are definitely more common in the UK than the US, but still not common by any definition, unless you’re over, maybe 70?
Women sometimes wear big floppy hats of some kind in warm weather. We may get asked if they’re going to a wedding but sometimes we just wear them for hot days.
Agree with ScifiSam on this one - there’ll always be somebody who can presents a ‘gotcha’ photograph of people wearing baseball caps in the UK, but they are still relatively rare and worn by youngsters fitting certain demographics rather than a standard that cuts across age and class.
Woolly hats/beanies seem popular for people of both sexes in winter (I carry one in my bag for cold, wet days).
In general though, I’d say that hat wearing is something that has lost favour in most cases. Even weddings aren’t as ‘hatted’ as they were 20 years ago.
My Dad still wears both a trilby and a flat cap in winter. But he’s 91.
I usually associate baseball caps with rural Americans, or, oddly, with Mexicans (Mexican-Mexicans, not Latinos in general), especially in Mexico.
As a rule, Israelis don’t wear hats. When they do, it’s only when hiking or working outdoors, in which case they wear a variety of headwear, with baseball caps and bucket hats being the most popular. Simple, small knit caps are worn on especially cold winter days.
Ultra-Orthodox male Israelis, naturally, wear black fedoras; Orthodox-but-not-that-Orthodox male Israelis often wear newsboy caps, flat caps or brown fedoras over their skullcaps. Orthodox female Israelis have a whole complex hat and wig thing going on that I never really understood.
My husband has an Akubra. He’s a redhead - ‘nuff said. But, image aside, I reckon the Great Australian Hat is the humble bucket hat. Followed closely by wide-brimmed straw hat if you want to look spiffy, legionnaires’ cap if you’re bushwalking.
A couple of years ago the young’ns were all about the trilby, but flat caps seem to be coming in, just in the last year or so. Spotted on both the younger, slightly dandified lecturers at Uni, and nearly-simultaneously my stoner nephew, so I figure they must be ubiquitous.
Or a hipster. They were everywhere in my former gentrifying suburb a year or so ago, usually matched with a bushy beard. Not sure if they’re still popular/ironically popular/retro again yet though.
My Great Uncle has a huge selection of baseball caps and wears one all the time and he’s in his 80s. He also wears Hawaiian shirts, shorts and sandals pretty much all year. We do have people like him around, they just ain’t quite normal.
Disappointed none of the Aussies have mentioned hats with corks round the brim to keep the drop bears off yet. C’mon guys.
Homburgs, trilbies and fedoras (in felt, not straw) are popular, and also tweed and dogtooth flat caps. They are particularly used to signify a man as an initiate (especially the flat caps with matching jacket) but also worn just in general by older Black men of more conservative or rural background.
Berets are popular with older Black women. Also socialists.
Bush hats and sun hats, on the other hand, are popular with outdoorsy types, we have similar sun issues as Australia.
There’s a characteristic shapeless floppy-brimmed felt bush hat, similar to the cartoon American hillbilly hat, that’s associated with rural Afrikaner men.
They were all the rage in the achingly hipster area around Broadway Market (Hackney, London) when I lived there in 2009-14, so I’d hope they’d be dying out by now!
IME farmers, golfers, Yorkshiremen, and shooters are the most likely wearers of flat caps. Panama hats are common in the hot sun (not so common here in Aberdeen 
but this weekend has been scorching). Fedoras seem to be losing their popularity with the death of Terry Pratchett.
I’m possibly more of a hat guy than most male Brits: OTTOMH I have a couple of bucket hats, a wide-brimmed bucket / fishing hat, a Panama hat, a wide-brimmed stiff straw hat I got in the US, a Fedora, a couple of beanies, and a Ushanka.
So he’s one of the Great British Eccentrics; carry on!
Judging from the news I read/hear daily, I’d say Tin-Foil ones.
Winner!