How to upcycle a hat

Replace trim on trilby

Keeping cool in the searing heat here in Cape Town right now is proving to be a challenge. Just getting some sleep would be nice. At night I lie awake too hot to do anything. Daytime temps are climbing close to 40’C and the air is still.

I was Googling hot countries and their traditional clothing. It’s always strange to me that traditional clothing in hot countries consists of so much. Think of Bedouins in the desert dressed in swathes of fabric or Rajastani warriors covered in elaborately wrapped cloth concoctions and towering turbans. For all the fabric being piled on, the garments are always loose and flowing. I wonder why my first instinct is always to wear less?

I discovered dhoti’s and lungi’s on the net. Traditional trousers made by folding and wrapping a plain piece of fabric around the body. One could take wearing  a sarong to a whole new level.

The point of this post is a hat to protect your head and face from the sun. I have a couple of trilby hats and although everyone is wearing them, they do keep me from burning. What I wanted to show in this post is that you can change the trim on a hat if you feel like a different colour. You may want to blend a hat with an outfit? A matching trim would do the trick. How about adding feathers or other exotic items to the hat trim? It’s all up to you. The only thing I would avoid doing myself is dying a hat. Imagine a hot and humid or rainy day and the colour ran. Now that would not be a good look.

The Greenie Galleries at the top of this page have 100s of photos of older and newer projects showing multiple ways to make your own clothing and accessories. There are also ideas to recycle or upcycle.

See you soon.

Greenie.