Tilley Hemp Hat

This is all one could wish for in a hat.  It is made of hemp so it is tough as all get-out, it floats, it can be squashed up, drenched and baked with no ill-effects.  The cord stops it coming off in high winds and on boats, the wide brim keeps face and neck in the shade.  It even has a secret pocket - so secret in fact that I had owned mine for two years before I discovered it by chance (who reads the instructions leaflet for a hat?).  Tilley offer a lifetime guarantee on this thing and I can see why.  Incidentally Tilley also make similar hats in other fabrics but they have a kind of strange sheen to them - this hat, because it is made of hemp has a really pleasing slight coarseness to it, that softens over time and develops a subtle patina.  Tilley appear not to make the TH3 any more having moved on to the TH5 but this, sadly, lacks the side poppers so you can snap-up the brim.

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I bought it 20 years ago in Collingwood, near Lake Huron, as I was planning a hike near the Beaver river and was concerned about sunstroke. Things went rapidly wrong as, 10 minutes into my walk, I was chased, flailing and actually screaming, from a wood by savage and grotesque insects.  

A true design classic - it has been wet for days, covered in every imaginable filth and subjected to all manner of abuse.  It still looks hardly worn.

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