An Ouji Overview: Part 4 Headwear

Headwear can sometimes be the most interesting part of your outfit. Some people prefer not to wear  things on their head. It's up to you whether or not you want to wear one.  

Hats are the most common for ouji. The best quality hats are made of wool, but felt hats are also good (and cheaper). There are DIY hat tutorials online that use other materials, such as cardboard bases covered in fabric, which is fine, but just make sure it doesn't look like you're wearing cardboard. Cheap looking hats are very distracting.  Use good quality fabrics and decorations and avoid bad lace, flimsy materials, visible glue, and so on.

General Advice

• The more over the top your coord is, the more over the top your hat can be. If you wear a really fancy hat with a simple coordinate because the hat will overshadow the rest of your clothes. 
• Avoid:
• hats that are too feminine 
• (lolita) bonnets: Males traditionally do not wear bonnets. Since this is boystyle, a bonnet would look terribly out of place. With lolita, you have the poof of a skirt to balance out the power of a bonnet. With ouji, the silhoette is generally too straight to even out the bonnet.
• too casual styles like baseball caps, beanies, etc.

Coordinate from Triple Fortune
The hat itself is very feminine, but coord is OTT enough with a lot of details to balance it out.

Common types of hats:

Top hats

• They come in various crown heights. Too tall of a hat will make you look like an Abraham Lincoln impersonator.

Tricorns and Bicorns

•  Usually worn with pirate or more OTT coords.

Bowler hats

• Great for casual or formal outfits. 

Berets

• Good for all styles. Fits well with military and sailor styles.

Crowns

• What's a prince without a crown? They go well with more OTT or flashy coords.

Boater hats

• Go well with casual styles.  

Peaked hats, Shako, Newsboy caps

• Peaked hats go well with military or gothic styles.
• Shako are also known as toy soldier or marching band hat.
• Newsboy caps are good for casual and classic styles.

Mini hats

• Almost all of the hats mentioned above have tiny counterparts. Honestly, mini hats are difficult to pull off. They can look cheap and costumey very easily. You have to be careful with proportions. Often you will need a hairstyle that can compliment the mini hat. You also have to consider your face shape as well.

Good examples of mini hats.

Bad mini hats. The first one is too tall and looks comical. The second one has bad lace and would probably be too small as a hat on a head (if it's too small, you can't even call it a hat anymore). The third one looks like it's made of paper.

Other Headwear

Headdresses, Bows, Headbands

• Careful not to use ones that are too feminine. Alternatively, you can also stick them on hats.

Headwraps

• These aren't too common, but they look very cool with punk or pirate looks.

Shops
Not repeating from the list in part 3. If you know of any more indie or offbrand headwear store, I'd love to fill this list out more!

Antique Beast
Apatico* (no longer in operation, but very inspirational)
Bella Bows
Chocomint
Corgi Corgi* (have to find them in resale shops like Atelier Pierrot)
Fox Cherry* (ready stock shop)* 
Kikirara Shoten*
Paradise Rose
Play Things 
Rococo Soul
Rosa Nitada
The Royal Rabbit
SakuraFairy
Tour New Soul
Triple Fortune* (no longer accepts website orders; only available through events; limited quantities sold at Atelier Pierrot [thank you darkxdelirium for this information])
Victorian Maiden*

* do not ship international

← Part 3  |  Table of Contents  |  Part 5 →