The Best Summer Hats and the Texans Who Wear Them With Real Flair

When Style is Top of the Head

BY Shelby Hodge // 07.28.20

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are handmade in Ecuador and can be ordered on line. @toquifinahats

Americana Partners president and partner Jason Fertitta and his daughter don their western hats for a vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Dallas' Shane Walker launches his Island Life Couture Collection

Attorney and avid Astros fan Ron Franklin choses a team hat while the ever fashionable Janet Gurwitch, private equity partner with Advent International, wears a stylish fedora.

Shelby Hodge & Shafik Rifaat in Rockport, Texas, she in Eric Javits open crown sun hat, he in his Viking Vines cap.

Terry & Amanda Boffone in Aspen in July, he in his retro baseball cap and she in a summer stunner.

This pearl and bead encrusted straw comes from a shop called Yaffa in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Tootsies creative fashion director Fady Armanious in Marfa in June when he changed hats with every outfit.

Mike & Lexi Marek in June in Telluride, Colorado, where caps are the casual fashion statement.

Frances Moody afloat in the Exumas Islands in July

Fashion blogger Beth Muecke in a stylish pose with head-to-toe fashion fun from from @tutucutesmooke

The stylish summer cap from Louis Vuitton

Rudy & Debbie Festari, Jeff & Rachel Bagwell, Rick Perez & Crystal Saldivar arriving in Aspen in July. Some are hat people and some are not.

Linsay Radcliffe social distancing in Houston

Edward Sanchez and Amanda Mills at play in Galveston in June. He in a Hawaii themed cap and she in a mid-brimmed straw.

Luxury consignment star Marla Hurley basks in the sun in an updated fedora.

Recipe for Success founder Gracie Cavnar at Hope Farms (Photo by Daniel Ortiz)

Shelby Hodge at home in the early days of the COVID-19 shutdown.

Dallas based hat designer Shane Walker creates a rousing collection of decorative summer hats with emphasis on the fedora.

Fendi enters the high-style cap game with this stunner.

Shafik Rifaat & Shelby Hodge in Key Largo

Shafik Rifaat & Shelby Hodge afloat in the Mediterranean

are handmade in Ecuador and can be ordered on line. @toquifinahats

One of the best aspects of summer fashion is the unassailable reason for wearing a hat. Suffering from a certain hat fetish, I oddly have a reluctance to wear them at any time of year other than summer although I do crown my head during the Rodeo and on really cold days. All of which is to say that I’ve been perusing the Internet for amazing hats, those worn by Texans and those splashed across Instagram by hat makers.

We all know that every fashionista worth her Louboutins has at least one stylish Panama hat in her closet. Gents as well, a la Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. And then there is Dallas based hat maker Shane Walker, who with his Island Life Couture Collection, has catapulted the basic fedora into a colorful, embellished bit of headgear. Classy enough for both guys and dolls.

Houstonians are keen on hat fashion thanks to Hermann Park Conservancy‘s Hats in the Park, the annual Kentucky Derby party benefiting Bo’s Place, and the River Oaks tennis tournament luncheon. For these affairs, particularly the latter two, bigger is better and sans chapeau equates to sans style creds.

Bigger is better also applies for the hats of summer when blocking skin-damaging sun rays from the face is paramount. Whether at the beach, hiking, on the golf course, or poolside, we want hats effective in blocking ultraviolet radiation as well as UVA/UVB radiation. The best are certified by the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists.

Baseball caps, bucket hats, gondolier hats, packable sun hats, voluptuous wide-brimmed beauties, we love them all. In addition to the enticing variety of so-called Panama hats, we are smitten with the designer caps such as the Louis Vuitton logo caps in the LV iconic colors as well as in red and denim blue. And then there is the serious-minded Fendi logo cap, the ultimate in logo statement.

Check out the images below for look at Texans in their summer hats and a few picks from the Instagram swirl: