Hats 101 - A Guide To Hat Terms & Styles

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What is the difference between a Crown and a Profile?
Wondering what is a flat brim or a sandwich bill?
Want to understand what defines a wide brim?
We all know that hats terms can get a little overwhelming. This article will help you get familiar with these jargons.
Hat Terms

Crown: The top portion of the hat; the area above the brim that sits on your head.
Visor/Bill/Brim/Peak: All the three terms means the stiff protruding part from the base of the crown and extending outward. It provides shade and protection for the wearer. Wider brim offers a greater degree of shade for the face.
Hat Band: The decorative strip of material encircling a hat, positioned above the brim; a common feature most often in the form of a ribbon, leather strip, or braided cord.
Sweatband/Inner Band: This is the hat’s interior band used to ensure a good fit and keep the hat shape intact. It is located just above the hat’s underbrim and is often made of leather or synthetic leather-like material.
Underbrim: The underside of a hat’s brim.
Buckram/Liner: The interior lining ...
... of the hat usually made with soft fabrics such as satin, velvet, synthetic mesh, cotton, or silk to retain the structure of the hat. Liner is not common among all hats.
Brim Binding/Edging: It is the specific styling around the outermost edge of the hat’s brim. This is an optional feature.
Pinch/Dent/Crease: This is the indentations made along the front, back, and sides of the crown.
Decoration: Any embellishment featured on the hat.
Panels: Triangular pieces of fabric that are stitched together to form the main rounded structure of the hat. Hats are usually 5 paneled or 6 paneled.
Button: A fabric covered metal jewel on the top of the crown to hold all the panels together. It is either metal or plastic and is covered with the fabric used on the cap.
Profile: Refers to the slope of the cap’s crown.
Closure: The back piece of the hat that determines the perfect fit and adjustability of the cap. Closures can be snap back, buckled and adjustable hook/loop tape or Velcro.

Eyelets: These are small holes on the top of the hat that allow the head to breathe. They can be either metal or reinforced stitching.
Common styles of Hats
Six panel & Five Panel
Crowns that are made of six triangular panels sewn together in a round shape is called a six panel cap. These caps have a seam running down the middle of the front of the hat.

Style: 18-772 - Unstructured 6 Panel Hat

Crowns that are made of five triangular panels are called a five-panel cap. These caps replace two triangular panels of the six-panel cap with a single one thus making the front of the hat seamless.

Style: 39-165 - Mesh 5 Panel hat

Flat Brim & Pre-curved Brim hat
Curved bill caps are those whose bills come with a slight curvature that can be further rolled to suit the individual wearer. Flat brims hats, as the name indicates, have a flat bill, often worn with the manufacturer sticker still attached to it to reinforce the maintained quality of the cap.

Structured & Unstructured hat
Some caps, when you remove them from your head, still retain the shape of the cap. Others, when you remove the cap, the crown collapses into limp fabric. The former is called a structured hat and the latter is called an unstructured hat.
In the structured hat, you can see the white buckram fabric reinforcement behind the front two panels. This is used to maintain the structure of the hat.

Style: 19-768 - structured 6panel Cotton Twill Hats
The unstructured hat on the right does not have the white buckram panels.

Style: 18-202 - Unstructured 6 Panel Hat

Low, Medium & High Profile The difference between these styles is the height of the crown.
Low profile hats will have shallower crowns in the 2-3 inch range, meaning that the brim of the hat will rest somewhere on the forehead when pulled down tight.
Medium profile denotes hats with a crown height of 3-4 inches, meaning the brim should reach to roughly the top of the brow when pulled down tight.
High profile hats have a crown height of more than 4 inches. These hats would reach to your eyes or further if pulled down tight.

Fitted hats
These hats got their name from the fact that you cannot adjust them. They have closed backs with no opening and have a stretchable fabric that wraps around your head. You just buy a size that fits your head.

style: 11-1172 - Blank Fitted Hats
Distressed Hats
Distressed hats have a beaten, torn or worn out look so that they look anything but new. These hats are not damaged and the distressing will not affect its wearability.

Style: 149-1091 - Distressed Hats Wholesale

Sandwich Bill
These hats use a colorful layer of material in the brim, while the top and bottom of the brim retain the same colors as the rest of the hat. The result is a layered color scheme along the breadth of the hat.

Style: 23-430 - Sandwich Bill 6 Panel

Ponytail Hat
It is a cap with a high ponytail hole to keep your hair up higher and off your neck. It will hold your hair in place better.

Style: 69-381 - Ponytail Hat

We hope you have got a better understanding of Hat Terms and common styles now than before. We will touch on common fabrics used for hats and other types of cap in the next blog.
That being said, if you are looking for an online store to buy cheap and wholesale hats, CapBargain is here for you. All our headwears can be screen printed or embroidered with logo, name, monogram or what you like, at low competitive costs.
We have a no minimum policy - whether it be ‘n’ number of caps wholesale for a big fundraiser or just one monogrammed hat for a holiday gift, we’ve got you covered. You can visit our site https://capbargain.com or just give a call or leave a message (https://capbargain.com/contact) for our friendly customer service team to help you out.