Akubra

A hat you keep

Fur felt, the right size, and the years it takes to look like yours.

THE KIMBERLEY SHOP · KUNUNURRA, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Up here a hat is not an accessory. The sun is on you all year — the dry is cloudless, and the wet just adds humidity to it — and there is often no shade between the vehicle and wherever you are walking to. A cap leaves your ears and the back of your neck out in it. A cheap hat blows off, soaks through, and has lost its shape by the second trip.

An Akubra is what people in this country have worn for a hundred years. The reason is simple. It works, and it lasts long enough to become yours.

Why fur felt

Akubras are made from rabbit fur felt at Kempsey in New South Wales. Fur felt holds a shape where wool felt sags, sheds rain rather than drinking it, and takes a knock without creasing for good. It breathes, too, which matters more here than it does down south.

That is why a good hat costs what it does, and why one of them outlasts ten of anything else.

Getting the size right

This is the part people get wrong, and the part worth coming in for.

A hat is sized to the circumference of your head, measured around the widest part — just above the ears, across the middle of the forehead. Snug, not pulled tight.

Worn properly it sits level, about a finger's width above your eyebrows, brim just clear of your ears. It should stay put when you shake your head and leave no red band when you take it off. A mark on your forehead means it is too small. Shifting when you look down means it is too big.

Half a size is the difference between a hat you wear and one that lives in the back of the ute. That is why a hat is a fitting, not a click, and why we do not sell them online.

Crown and brim

Models differ in two things that matter: the shape of the crown and the width of the brim.

The Traveller is the one most people up here end up in. It is easy to wear, easy in a vehicle, and it does the job without making a statement about it.

But if you want a classic Akubra — the hat people picture when they hear the word — you want a wide brim. There is no getting around it. A wide brim is what gives the hat its line, and it is also what actually keeps the sun off your ears and the back of your neck.

Crown shape is about your face more than anything practical. A taller crown suits a longer face, a lower one suits a broader face. Past that it is taste, and the right one is obvious in about four seconds — rarely the one people walk in expecting.

Colour

Sand, fawn and the greys throw off heat and hide dust. Black looks sharp and gets hot. Most people up here end up somewhere in between.

Breaking it in

A new Akubra is stiff, and it looks it. That passes. Fur felt takes the shape of the head that wears it, and after a season the hat is yours in a way it was not on day one.

Wear it. Do not try to age it. The things that make an old hat worth looking at — the sweat line, the softened brim, the slight lean — come from being used, and cannot be faked.

Looking after it

Handle it by the brim, not the crown. Lifting a hat by the crown is what wears them out. Rest it upside down, or on a hook, rather than flat on the brim. If it gets wet, let it dry away from heat — never on the dash, never in front of a fire, which shrinks felt and does not give it back. Brush dust in one direction rather than scrubbing at it.

Do that and it will last years. There are people out here still wearing the one they bought in their twenties.

What we carry

A generous selection on the bench in the shop — town hats and station hats, in the greys, fawns and blacks that suit the dust up here. Enough to try a few shapes against each other, which is the only way to know.

We do not sell Akubras online, and that is deliberate. A hat you have not had on your head is a guess, and a guess at this price is a hat you do not wear. If you are coming through Kununurra, come in and try a few on.