Given its simplicity and practicality, it’s small wonder that the flat cap has almost global appeal and is one of the best hat styles for men. But then, while Peaky Blinders may have energised interest in it and its six or eight-panelled cousin the ‘baker boy’ style, the flat cap has been around since the 14th century.

An Act of Parliament in the UK in 1571 made it mandatory to wear a woollen cloth cap on Sundays and public holidays – more as a boost to sheep farming than weekend style. But today, it’s all about aesthetics and what it can add to your look.

There are plenty of pitfalls of course, but these can be easily avoided if you know what you’re doing. The whole ‘faux-gentleman’ thing that embraced the flat cap (as well as the beard and exaggerated moustache) has come and gone, but it is possible to wear one and look both contemporary and cool.

What Is The Flat Cap?

There is, in fact, a genius inherent to this affordable and durable design: less formal than more structured hats – and so less off-putting for men who can’t, as it were, get their heads around hats – its design is still a deceptively clever one.

Cut deeper at the back, it has more purchase than it looks like it does – useful especially when lifting eyes to the sky while shooting, for example; the brim is short but still enough to shade eyes; and the whole thing is foldable, easily stowed inside a pocket.

Reiss

These are all notions nicked by spin-offs such as the driving cap, cycling cap and even the baseball cap. Perhaps the most appealing thing about the flat cap right now though is that it’s not a baseball cap. Ever understated, you’d never get a flat cap sporting some brash logo.

How To Wear A Flat Cap

Like its American equivalent, the baseball cap, the flat cap has an everyman quality to it, as fitting atop a pigeon-fancying Yorkshireman as it is an estate-touring toff, whether working the land or owning it. It found a place in skinhead culture, but also hip-hop and has been favoured by everyone from Del Boy to Samuel L. Jackson.