At 63, I'd spent forty years telling everyone hats don't suit me

Six things the Josephine hat gets right, from a woman who was wrong about it for most of her adult life.

Diane Pelletier · Customer · Ottawa, Ontario · 5 min read

"Hats don't suit me." I've said it so often I stopped hearing myself say it. In shops, at weddings, outside the school thirty years ago, and on a bus shelter on Bank Street last January when it was minus twenty-two and my ears had gone numb. Someone would say, you need a hat today, and I'd say, oh, hats just don't suit me, and we'd both nod like it was settled.

It was never settled. It was my opinion of one hat, formed somewhere around 1985, that I'd been repeating ever since.

And I'd been cold through forty Canadian winters because of it.

How it starts

You try on a hat when you're young. It's nearly always a plain knitted toque, because that's what's on the rack, and a plain toque does exactly one thing to your face: it pulls everything in tight and flat, hides your hair, and leaves you with no shape at all. You glance in a mirror under fluorescent lights, think "oh no," and put it back.

And then you never try again. Not once in forty years. The verdict just sits there and hardens until it isn't something you saw in a mirror anymore — it's something about you. Hats don't suit me. Like your eye colour.

My sister gave me a knitted toque two Christmases ago. It's still in my dresser with the tag on. I'm not proud of that, but I suspect plenty of you have that same drawer.

What I had wrong

I wasn't wrong that the hat looked bad on me. I was wrong about the reason.

It was never that hats didn't suit me. It was that a flat hat has no shape to offer, so all it can do is take yours away.

A basic toque clings to your head like a sock. Everything it does to your face, it does by removing something. A hat with a deep rolled brim is different: it brings its own shape, and that shape stands away from your head instead of pressing down on it. Suddenly there's something around your face rather than something squashing it. Same head. Completely different result.

Nobody ever told me this, and honestly I'm a little annoyed, because my forties could have been a lot warmer.

The Josephine came from Sylvie & Odette, a small shop that dresses women our age. It's a plush faux fur hat with a soft rounded crown and a deep rolled brim, and it was $39.95 — which I'll come back to, because that's the other thing I got wrong.

1.The brim does all the work

The brim is rolled up all the way around, and it's deep. The fur on it is longer and looser than on the crown, so it flares out — the hat is widest at the bottom. That one detail is the whole difference between this and every hat I've ever given up on. The brim holds its own shape. It doesn't need your head to give it one, so it doesn't flatten your head to get it.

2.It frames my face instead of hiding it

Because the brim stands out and the crown is a soft dome rather than a tight cap, what you see in the mirror is an outline around your face, not a lid on top of it. My hair still shows at the sides and back, which matters, because half of what a toque takes away is your hair. It isn't doing anything magical. It's simply the right shape — and after forty years of the wrong one, that feels like a lot.

3.It turns a plain coat into a choice

From now until April, everyone you pass is in a dark parka or a dark wool coat — and so are you — and looking like you made an effort just quietly gets put on hold for half the year. One pale faux fur hat over a navy coat changes that by itself. I didn't buy a new coat. I didn't do anything except put this on with the coat I already owned, and the whole outfit looks different.

4.It's warm exactly where I get cold

The rolled brim is a double layer of fur and it sits right down over the ears and across the forehead — exactly where the wind gets in, and exactly where most hats stop. For years I walked around with a scarf pulled up over my ears like I had a toothache, because the hat I refused to wear would have done the job properly. This one does. Ears, forehead, done.

5.It weighs nothing, so it lives in my purse

This matters more than you'd think. The reason people own hats and don't wear them is that you have to decide at the door whether you'll need one — and you always guess wrong. This one is so light it just stays in my bag, so I never have to decide. It shakes right back into shape. Mine has been in and out of my purse since the day it came and it still looks brand new.

6.It's faux — otherwise I wouldn't wear it

I want to say this plainly, because I think it's the quiet reason many women our age never bought a hat like this. I wouldn't wear real fur. My mother had a fur collar in the sixties and even as a little girl I knew I didn't want one. This is faux and completely animal-free, so you can just enjoy how soft it is without that small uneasy feeling underneath.

The Josephine vs. the toque in my dresser

The toque is still in the drawer with its tag on, so this is a fair fight.

About the price

It's $39.95 CAD.Was $75 CAD

My honest first reaction wasn't flattering. I saw under forty dollars and assumed it would be thin — the kind of fake fur so sparse you can see the backing, that mats down after two weeks and ends up looking like a prize from the fall fair.

It isn't thin. The fur on the brim is long and dense and springs back when you run your hand through it, and the crown has a shorter, tighter pile, so the two parts of the hat genuinely look different — the kind of detail nobody bothers with at this price. It's hand wash in cold water, which is the one thing worth knowing before you order.

What I'd tell you if we were friends

If you were sitting across from me with a cup of tea, I wouldn't try to talk you into a hat. I'd ask you when you decided hats don't suit you — and I'd watch you try to remember. I don't think you could.

That's the part worth thinking about. Most of the things we're sure we can't wear were decided once, quickly, a very long time ago, in bad lighting, about one particular item — and never looked at again. They aren't facts about us. They're old opinions we never updated.

I was never a woman who didn't suit hats. I was a woman who tried one hat in 1985 and never checked again.

You don't have to take my word for it. Under forty dollars and thirty days is a very cheap way to find out which of us is right.

Diane Pelletier

About the writer

Diane Pelletier is 63 and lives in Ottawa, Ontario. She is a customer, not a fashion writer, and she was not paid to write this letter.

Josephine | Luxury Vegan Fur Hat

$39.95 CAD$75 CAD

• Plush faux fur — thick, soft and completely animal-free
• Deep rolled brim for extra warmth over the ears and forehead
• Rounded crown in a classic winter shape that frames the face
• Light enough to keep in your purse for when the weather turns
• One size fits most
• Five colours: cream, white, brown, black and soft pink
• Hand wash cold · Free shipping across Canada · 30-day returns

See the Josephine hat

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