This Urban Outfitters Vanessa Straw Boater Hat ($39) is proof that you can. Urban Outfitters Vanessa Straw Boater Hat From $39 $39 at urbanoutfitters.com ...

Hat lovers selling their vintage findsNatalie Mackey, left, and Chelsea Irwin with some of the 5,000 hats they have collected and are selling on the web, Nov. 1, 2013, in Philadelphia.

“A straw hat only works if it feels a little wrong,” he adds. “Either a little too big, too unstructured, or too tilted to one side.

A straw boater hat lays on the grass on the first day of the Henley Royal Regatta at Henley-on-Thames on June 28, 2006 in Oxfordshire, England. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images ...

Lack Of Color Women's Raffia Fray Paloma Sun Hat $158.95 at Amazon If your chapeau collection doesn’t include at least one wide-brimmed straw hat, now would be the time to correct it — we ...

ARCADIA FLOPPY STRAW BOATER, $199 This soft, wider brimmed take on the in-fashion school boater, from innovative Australian hat maker Aniss Adler's Studio ANISS "Nude + Plus" range is made of cool ...

The hat, in the boater style, is traditionally a men’s summer hat made of stiff straw. Coco Chanel is credited with elevating the boater hat to a fashion piece for women.