What kind of Hat Should I wear with a Zoot Suit

Posted by Aaron Sarfati on Jul 19, 2023

Now I get this question all the time. What sort of hat should a person wear with a zoot suit. The first way to answer that question is that the zoot suit wearer should wear a dress hat with their zoot suit. Why you ask? Because when zoot suits first came out during the 1930s all men wore dress hats in public with their suits. Come to think of it, all men wore hats all the time in public whether they were wearing suits or not. Hats were always on a man's head back in those days. It was almost unheard of to see a man out and about without a covering on his head.


Which brings me back the topic, what kind of hat should you wear with zoot suits. First the hat should be wool felt hat with brim of at least 2 1/2 inches wide like a fedora hat or godfather hat. The hat should have a satin lining inside to keep your hair neat with a hatband that is sewn in. Those are the types of quality features to look for in a dress hat that you would wear with a zoot suit. In terms of what color hat to wear with your zoot suit, that can go two ways. The first way to match your dress hat with your zoot suit is to match the color of the hat to the color of your zoot suit. Red zoot suit, red dress hat. Easy right. The second way to match a dress hat to the color of your zoot suit is what I call the ensemble look.

The ensemble look takes the color of the zoot suit and makes that a blank canvas to jump from and works the colors around what the accessories will be. For example, lets say you're just going to go with a black zoot suit but your date may be wearing a red dress. You would want your accessories like your dress shirt, tie, dress shoes and dress hat to match the red color of your date's dress. So picture your black zoot suit with red shoes,red dress shirt and red fedora hat and you will be a show stopper.

So whatever way you choose in color coordination with your zoot suit, if you take my advice you shouldn't have a problem figuring out what type of hat to wear with your zoot suit to finish off your look.