My Favourite Hat Styles (With Photosensitivity)

Since becoming photosensitive when my hemiplegic migraine started at the age of 11, hat’s have become an important part of my life. When I started loosing consciousness with basilar type migraine at the age of 13, they moved from being helpful to a necessity. I’ve written about how hats help me with photosensitivity and managing my migraine in my Migraine and Photosensitivity post. As hats are such an important part of my life, I thought I’d share with you my favourite hat styles.

I have to say that, while I’ve embraced the need to wear a hat, I do sometimes find it frustrating. Particularly when photos are being taken at an event or on a day out. If you know how I can reduce the shadow on my face from a hat brim and not look like I’m peaking out from under the hat, please let me know!

My Favourite Hat Styles: Floppy Felt Hat

Floppy felt hats have the best brim for shielding my eyes from problematic lighting of any style that I’ve tried. This style of hat suits most people and compliment almost any outfit. I’ve worn mine wish casual outfits and dressy ones alike. The only draw back with floppy felt hats is that if the brim is too floppy it can be difficult to see where you’re going. This is less of a problem if you have a spare hand to hold/reposition your hat, but as a wheelchair user this is challenging! I have a beige floppy felt hat that’s only been worn once for this reason. Such a shame, because it’s a lovely hat.

My Favourite Hat Styles: Bucket Hat

I bought this bucket hat on-the-go, when I was struggling with lighting just before Christmas. I’d meant to wear a hat out but completely forgot. I knew I wouldn’t get through the day without something, so I found this one on a market stall. While it doesn’t give the same shield from problematic lighting, it does give enough coverage to hide some of the glare from fluorescent lights. Where as my floppy felt hat isn’t great to wear in the car, my bucket hat is perfect. I can comfortably lean my head on the head rest and it won’t come off! This is another option that can be dressed up or down.

My Favourite Hat Styles: Beret

The only one of my favourite hat styles the doesn’t have a brim is the beret. I wore berets a lot when I was at uni. To me, this hat style is so elegant. Maybe that’s the association with France. My only complaint about my berets is that it takes me a while to arrange them in a way that I’m happy with. While I don’t get to wear berets as often as I’d like, because they’re no help with my photosensitivity, they hold a special place in my heart.

My Favourite Hat Styles: Gatsby/Schoolboy

The Gatsby/schoolboy style of hat is one that I haven’t worn much since getting my first floppy hat. It’s a style that I’ve found incredibly useful in the past, but I don’t feel the style suits me at the moment. I really liked how the Gatsby/schoolboy style looked with my curly hair and have invested in quite a few different colours as a result. I keep my black Gatsby/schoolboy in a rucksack with my splints and braces because, unlike my bucket hat or felt floppy hat, it squashes down and returns to shape well. They create a good shield from problematic lights, so always worth me carrying around. For me, I feel that this style is more suited to a casual outfit.

My Favourite Hat Styles: Trilby

As a teenage, a trilby was my hat style of choice. I don’t remember ever seeing floppy felt hats at the time. I have to be careful with trilby that I don’t buy one with too tall a crown, because these don’t suit my head shape. The trilbies I own offer similar protection from lighting to my bucket hat. I have a few trilbies of different colours and materials. Writing this post has reminded me how much I loved my trilbies – I definitely need to wear them more.

What are your favourite hat styles?

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