Fend off the Winter Chill with a Cold Weather Cap

It’s that time of year again when you need to start making the hard decisions: to crush your coif or heat up your head? Wintertime is notorious for the dreaded “hat hair,” but it’s also the perfect time to experiment with adding knitted hats to your ensemble. Whether you’re going for a more traditional look with cabling or a logoed beanie, there are designs aplenty out there on today’s market. Or better yet – you could pick up the ol’ needles and try to make a one-of-a-kind marvel yourself!

Bare Beanie

Beanies are meant to be worn very tightly-fitting against your head to help keep the heat in and the freezing air out. Some beanies can retain more heat than others, depending on the yarn used to knit.

There are a few do’s and don’ts when you are considering wearing a beanie. For one, do wear a beanie that covers your ears unless you have a specific fisherman-beanie-inspired outfit (a fisherman beanie being a beanie that is designed to sit above the ears). Do match your beanie to your outfit or keep it to muted colors like black, brown, or grey. Don’t wear a beanie with a hard front brim, and for heaven’s sake, keep away from those beanies that have all of that extra space up top. What are you trying to hide up there, anyway?

Cute Cabling

Cabling is a special kind of knitting where the stitches are picked up and brought underneath each other to make what looks like a braid. It is very common in country knitting, so it evokes a kind of whimsy and class when you pair it with a cabled scarf and fingerless gloves.

Perfect Pompom

Though it used to be reserved for children’s headwear, the pompom has branched out into both adult men’s and women’s fashions. Depending on the style, you may need a little bit of a sense of humor to wear a knit hat with a pompom, but more and more celebrities are incorporating this cold-weather style into their winter attire. Knit hats with pompoms are often extremely colorful and even have funny or charming sayings knit directly into the design. The one potential downside of the pompom hat is that it makes it difficult to wear your hood on your head, so if you live in a place that gets cold enough to necessitate both a hood and a hat (you poor thing!), keep that in mind.

Nostalgia and Novelty

My own mother is a knitter, and my favorite hat that she ever made is called the “Dead Fish” hat. Equipped with knit fins and tail and two giant X-marked eyes, this hat is knit in such a way that it looks like a giant dead fish that has its mouth open, as if it is about to make a meal of your head. It elicits double-takes and giggles from passersby every time I wear it, and it’s hard to keep a smile off my own face whenever I see my reflection in the mirror.

Some novelty hats make it look like brightly-colored hair or a beard is coming out of your head, tentacles are coming down from your mouth, or like you have fanciful ears, wings, or extra eyes. Still others make you look like your head is an apple, cactus, or Christmas tree while others make you look like your favorite pop culture or cartoon character. There truly is something out there for everyone.

Easygoing Earflap

The earflap hat is exactly what it sounds like it would be: a knit hat where two of the sides dip down to cover your ears. Frequently, there are even strings attached to the earflaps so that the hat will stay on even during particularly blustery weather. These hats usually come with a pompom attached to the top and some pretty crazy designs with the yarn. All in all, the earflap hat is perfect for the outdoorsman and winter sports guru.

Boutique-worthy Berets

Berets can be worn many different ways, and they flatter just about every face shape. The great thing about berets is that you can get them as plain or fancy as you want. They usually have a tight-fitting band around the head that flairs out into a somewhat slouchy hat body that often has intricate designs. They go perfectly with long, curled hair peeking out from underneath, though short hair yields a level of sophistication also. You can get knit berets in every shape, level of slouch, and color, so if you’re looking for a beret, you’re sure to find one that fits your personality.

Loco for Logos

You can get a logo on just about any kind of knit hat, but you’ll see them most frequently on skull caps and beanies with or without a soft, upturned brim. With an embroidered hat, a design can be knit directly into the hat’s pattern or even onto a patch that is sewn onto the hat itself. Logos can range from colleges to sports teams and social causes to trendy brands.

Knit hats come in all shapes, styles, and colors, and they have been keeping our heads warm for hundreds of years. No longer constrained to being merely functional, they can now complement any personality, budget, outfit, and sense of style.