How to Choose a Hat by Face Shape — Completing the 7-Type Styling Series After Glasses, Eyebrows, and Hair
Ever bought a new hat only to find it made your face look bigger or just felt off? Many people carefully match glasses, eyebrows, and hair to their face shape, but pick a hat purely on looks. By the end of this guide, you’ll know exactly which hat designs to avoid — and which to reach for — based on your face shape.
Hats Sit Closer to Your Face Than Any Other Accessory
APL COLOR diagnoses face shape into 7 types: Oval, Inverted Triangle, Heart, Round, Square, Diamond, and Peanut. We already covered glasses, eyebrows, and hair styling using these 7 types in One Face Shape, Three Answers: Glasses, Eyebrows, and Hair. Hats sit closer to the face than almost anything else you wear, so they’re shaped by face shape just as much as by personal color. This is the fourth installment in that series, breaking down hats by the same 7 face-shape framework.
Quick Self-Check — Find Your Face Shape First
We covered the full 7-type self-check in detail in One Face Shape, Three Answers: Glasses, Eyebrows, and Hair, so here’s just what you need for this guide.
- Round: Little difference between face length and width, overall rounded.
- Square: Angular jawline with a pronounced lower face.
- Inverted Triangle / Heart: Wide across the cheekbones, narrowing toward the jaw.
- Diamond: Cheekbones stand out prominently.
- Oval: Upper, middle, and lower face proportions are evenly balanced.
In Practice — Best and Worst Hats by Face Shape
| Face Shape | BEST | WORST | Key Point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round | A structured hat with a stiff, upright crown; a large brim that isn’t too curved down | A soft, floppy beanie that hugs the head | Show more forehead to reveal the eyebrows, or wear the hat pushed back to emphasize vertical lines |
| Square (prominent jawline) | A bucket hat that flares outward, or a design with a long, extended brim | A hat with a narrow, downward-curved brim | Draw the eye upward, and let the brim’s shadow naturally soften the angular jawline |
| Inverted Triangle / Heart / Diamond (prominent cheekbones) | A design wider than your cheekbones, with hair slightly showing at the sides | A hat that sits higher than your ears | Match the hat’s bottom edge to your cheekbone line so the cheekbones don’t stand out more |
| Oval | Ball caps, berets, beanies, bucket hats — almost anything works | No design in particular to avoid | Choose freely based on the day’s mood and outfit |
A Tricky Case — What If Your Face Feels Especially Long?
This isn’t one of APL’s official 7 types, but it’s a bonus tip for anyone whose face-shape diagnosis showed especially pronounced vertical length. A tall, stiff crown will make your face look even longer, so it’s best to avoid it. Instead, choose soft materials like knit or flowing-fabric bucket hats, with a roomy horizontal profile and a looser silhouette — this spreads the eye side to side and softens the vertical length.
The Rationale — The Fourth Item in the Face-Shape Styling Series
APL has already mapped out glasses, eyebrows, and ceremony-day hair using the same 7 face-shape types (see One Face Shape, Three Answers: Glasses, Eyebrows, and Hair). This hat guide adds a fourth item to that same framework — the same principle keeps holding: know your face shape, and you can choose glasses, eyebrows, hair, and now hats all at once.
Takeaways
- If you’re Round, look for a hat with a firm, upright crown. If you’re Square, look for a brim that flares outward. If your cheekbones stand out (Inverted Triangle, Heart, or Diamond), choose a design wider than your cheekbones.
- If you’re Oval, almost any hat works — choose freely based on the day’s mood and outfit.
- If your face feels especially long, skip the tall, stiff crown and go for a soft-material bucket hat instead.
If you’d like an accurate face-shape diagnosis and styling guidance for glasses, eyebrows, hair, and hats all in one session, check out APL COLOR’s face-shape diagnosis.
Sources: hat styling guidance (blog post from June 12) and the definition of APL’s 7 face-shape types plus the glasses self-check (blog post from Aug 29). The original post covered 5 cases (Round, Square, Inverted Triangle, Heart, Diamond, Oval), which we remapped to APL’s 7-type naming; Peanut was excluded since the original had no matching case. The “long face” case falls outside APL’s 7 official types and is noted separately as a bonus case. The original images were photos of models wearing the hats, so we replaced them with a table instead.
APL COLOR offers personal color and face-shape diagnosis combining LS170 spectrophotometer LAB measurement with expert draping analysis. Explore our professional courses →