Designing and making mens and ladies hats for 30 years has led me to discover the best ways to store hats. Dust, moisture and stacking hats are eventually going to cause damage to your hat
We love to use our hats as decor. We hang our hats on hooks on the wall or coat and hat racks. This method is fine for short periods of time, a week or 3, but is not a long term solution for storing a hat. Gravity works. Your hat will begin to stretch.The hook will cause a bump in the crown and misshape your hat. Just like a sweater hung on a hook, with an annoying stretched out bump where the hook has been. The fabric of hats will do the same. Hats and sweaters are often made from the same material, wool
When hats are stored on a wig head or hat display, gravity works. It begins to pull the hat down, stretching the crown taking the shape it is stored on. The brim will bend and become misshapen. If you like to use your hats as decor, move them often and give them a rest off the hook or wig stand. You don’t notice this when you wear your hat, as it sits on your head for shorter periods of time
Store hats upside down off their brims. Unless the brim you want the brim to be perfectly flat or you want to change the shape of the brim to be flat or wonky.
Storing hats upside down, keeps the brim shape intact, so when its turned upright to wear it falls back into its original shape.
Never stack your hats
Hats should never be stacked on top of each other. The crowns and brims will be squashed under the weight of the pile. Again gravity working. You will find it very difficult to steam out the wrinkles or straighten and reshape a brim.
If you need to stack your hats, for space saving or long term storage. Make a ring out of some cardboard about 2 inches/4.5cm wide by approx 24 inches long shape it into a circle and staple or tape. Fit it loosely around the crown of the hat. Stack your hats upside down, with the cardboard ring between each hat. This will stop the crowns from sitting directly into each other and no more squashed crowns.
The bottom hat should sit upside down on a ring slightly deeper, approx, ⅛ inch”-¼ inch, than the hat crown, fitting loosely around the crown, this ring will be between 4-5 inches deep depending on the height of the hat crown.
Store hats upside down in cardboard boxes or in loose plastic or paper bags or just covered with a piece tissue to keep the dust off. Stack no more than 5 or 6 ha
Enjoy your hats