If you're after a wide brim hat for men or women, you're probably shopping for one thing: real sun coverage, not the token shade a baseball cap gives you. Here's what to look for, and where a wide brim hat can do more than just block the sun.
What makes a wide brim hat worth buying
A genuinely wide brim — not a narrow 5cm strip — shading your face, ears, and the back of your neck. UPF50+ fabric, since a hat that looks wide but lets UV through isn't doing its job. And a fit that stays put in wind, not something you're chasing across the yard.
Wide brim hats for women
Look for adjustable sizing (a lot of "one size" wide brim hats fit like they were designed for one head shape), a brim wide enough to actually shade your shoulders, and a style you'll still want to wear after the first wash.
Wide brim hats for men
The same fundamentals apply — UPF50+, genuine brim width, a fit that holds in wind — without the assumption that "men's wide brim" just means plain and beige. There's no reason a practical hat can't also look good.
The one thing most wide brim hats don't do
They stop at sun protection. The moment the flies or mosquitoes show up — and in most of Australia, they will — a plain wide brim hat leaves you swatting your face just like anyone else. Dreamtimez wide brim hats fix that: full UPF50+ coverage plus a built-in fly and mosquito net that tucks away into the brim when you don't need it and drops down in seconds when you do. One hat, for men or women, doing the job of two.
And the artwork is real
Every Dreamtimez wide brim hat features original artwork from an Australian Aboriginal artist, with ongoing royalties paid on every sale — so the hat looks like something, not just a beige circle of fabric. See the full range.