Bouffant Newsboy Hats for Women

Like a fluffy hairdo, a newsboy cap poufs out around your head. They're especially flattering if you happen to have a narrow face and/or baby-fine hair. But many so-called newsboys aren't worthy of the name; they're not full enough, or too full on top and not enough on the sides. The hats on this page are trying for perfection.

I started making newsboy hats because there aren't many available with the right poufiness and visor. Lauren, below, is the culmination of much experimentation. The fabric is green faux-suede polyester with a white microfleece lining and buckram visor. Click to see a full-size photo in a new tab.

Before getting to Lauren, I tried a lot of different things, which are incorporated in the hats below. They’re all attractive, just with little differences from Lauren. The questions they answered include: What ray-shape is best? What fabric and lining and visor materials are best? Should the fabric and lining ray-seams alternate, or be directly above-and-beneath each other? Should the lining pieces be smaller than the fabric pieces? What shape should the visor be? Which is better, narrower or wider elastic? What kind of elastic?

Click a hat to get its details and to see four views of it, each of which can be expanded to full-size.

They consist of 22 pieces: 8 fabric panels (rays), 8 lining panels, inner band, outer band, visor insert, visor top-cover, visor bottom-cover, and elastic. The hat's poufiness, and whether the pouf is more vertical or horizontal, and whether the outer circumference is more rounded or pointy, are determined by the fabric and lining ray-shapes, and the fabric and lining materials.

Each has a shapely visor, which acts not only as a sun-shield but also frames your face. A good visor should be proportional (not extending too far to the sides or out-in-front) and flatteringly arc-ed. If you've tried on any unisex ballcaps, you've probably noticed that their bills are too large for a woman's face and many are flat as a pancake. A nicely curved visor is crucial to the look of a good hat.

As well as being attractive, a hat should be comfortable. These have an inner band to gently hug your head, with hidden elastic in back for a good fit. All the newsboy hats except Rachel and Cathleen and Lauren are made of cotton corduroy, which is especially effective for 8-section hats since its striped texture emphasizes the fan-out of the rays. However, the best kind of corduroy is hard to find in fabric stores these days.

Most of the visors are made of extra-stiff 2-ply crown buckram, which is an excellent material. However, excessive moisture can wilt buckram, so those visors should only be spot-cleaned.

You might also like to see the original "hafahats", which are unusual small hats that are perfect for covering the crown of the head, where many women experience thinning. See the hafahats.

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