One size doesn’t fit all: how to buy hats when you have a big head – and 12 of the best

Size matters: Simon Usborne at Lock & Co Hatters in London, wearing a St Louis trilby that was specially made to fit his sizeable head. Photography by Alicia Canter for the Guardian unless stated Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

For a neglected section of society, few other phrases are so divorced from reality as “one size fits all”, when sewn inside a hat. A more accurate version would read: “It makes no economic sense for us to make multiple versions of this product.” Or: “We don’t care about people with really big heads.”

I am a person with a Really Big Head (RBH – I’m making that a thing). And you know what they say about guys with big heads? Big hats. Especially if they’re also bald and don’t want to get skin cancer. Yet for most of my adult life, summers have involved a tragic search for a hat that fits.