Trending: A Head Focus

This has partly been fuelled by the return of a distinct 90s nostalgia, with bucket hats and baseball caps often emblazoned with logos reclaiming their pedestal. But a huge range of styles from panama and beret to boater, fedora and flat cap, and from floral to sporty, mean there’s something for everyone this season.

Fendi presented a luscious green collection with an equally natural set to match. The horticultural-chic looks included wide-brimmed hats and sophisticated takes on bucket hats in olive and snakeskin, adorned with subtle logos. A fresh bucolic ambience was also embraced at Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton show, as fresh flowers decorated outfits. Headwear options ranged from wide-brimmed pieces in pastel shades to PVC rain hats.

And for those searching for a more handcrafted feel, JW Anderson’s Loewe showcased the designer’s renowned skills at offering a luxury spin on craft in his own namesake line, which included brightly coloured wool doughnut hats. 

Sustainability is one of the key issues facing fashion brands today, and Marni took this to heart. The collection featured a wide range of headwear made of discarded materials and feathers in a kaleidoscope of colours.

Raf Simons’s autumn collection, which showed in Paris earlier this year, is full of headwear, this time offering exaggerated styles inspired by riding hats. These were married with oversized tailoring, boxy shoulders and even a wild leopard print. This sporty-meets-high-fashion vibe continued at Ermenegildo Zegna, which offered felt hats in plum and khaki colourways. And Simons’s former brand Dior Men showcased a fine selection of millinery expertise by milliner extraordinaire Stephen Jones. The muted collection of crisp white, ivory and steel-blue was punctuated with bursts of fuchsia and embroidered visor caps, presented as a collaboration with artist Daniel Arsham in a play on his influences.

The trend is more of a return than something new. After all, men have worn hats for centuries, as signifiers of not just fashion sense but social status, religion and culture. The practice waned in popularity during the latter half of the 20th century, but with designers offering a more whimsical and flamboyant take on the perennial, we’re once again celebrating the way a good hat tops an outfit.