All About Trucker Hats

A close cousin of the baseball cap, the trucker hat is a quintessentially American piece of headwear that’s recently enjoyed a surge in popularity. The hat of choice for truckers, farmers, loggers, and other hard-working rural professionals, the trucker hat is now embraced as a fashion statement as well as workwear.

What is a Trucker Hat?

The typical trucker hat has a hard, sweat-absorbing front panel with a company logo or promotional message on the front. Plastic mesh panels at the back provide ventilation while a plastic snapback closure adjusts to fit. For purists, these features are what makes a real trucker hat, although as you’ll see, there’s some variation in styles.

History of the Trucker Hat

The trucker hat’s origins are closely tied to promotional marketing. Beginning in the 1960s, businesses began offering the caps as promotional gifts to truckers, farmers, and other rural businessmen. Functional and inexpensive to mass produce, trucker hats quickly became a staple of the rural workforce’s wardrobe due to the cap’s ventilation and sweat-absorbing qualities. The fact the hats were free promotional gifts certainly helped build their popularity—for a while they were known as “feed hats” or “gimme hats,” and if you owned one, chances were good it was a free promotional item and not a personal purchase. Some hat enthusiasts have amassed impressive collections of trucker hats solely from promotional campaigns.

In the early 2000s, trucker hats caught on as a fashion statement among urban subcultures, particularly the “hipster” community, a trend that continues today.

The urban adoption of the trucker hat wasn’t well received by many rural workers, who felt that by wearing their beloved hats “ironically” young urban wearers were making fun of the hat’s long association with hard-working individuals. While considered fashion accessories in the city, the trucker hat remains a practical and functional part of any country-dwellers’ wardrobe.

Types of Trucker Hat

Trucker Snapback Hats

The original classic, trucker snapback hats have an adjustable strap at the back of the hat made from two plastic pieces that snap securely together. Examples include:

• New Era’s Snapback Trucker Cap
• Richardson Trucker Snapback Cap
• Port Authority Snapback Trucker Cap

Flat Bill Trucker Hat

While many trucker hats have curved visors, the flat bill trucker hat has an unbent brim that wearers can bend to meet their personal preferences. Popular flat bill trucker hats include:

 

• District’s Flat Bill Snapback Trucker Cap
• New Era’s Original Fit Snapback Trucker Cap
• Under Armour’s Flat Bill Cap

Flexfit Trucker Hats

Flexfit trucker hats are characterized by a stretchable spandex mesh at the sides and back for maximum ventilation, with a typical tough foam front and bent or unbent brim, like the hats listed here:

• SPORT-TEK Flexfit Cool and Dry Poly Block Mesh Cap
• Columbia’s Mesh Flexfit Ball Cap
• Flexfit Trucker Cap

Not sure which style of hat meets your promotional needs? Take our Hat Quiz to help you choose the trucker hats you need.

Trucker Hats for Men, Trucker Hats for Women

Trucker hats are very egalitarian headwear—they’re a unisex hat suitable for men and women, which only increases their versatility as promotional gifts. If you’re targeting a specific gender, you choose colors and logos that reflect masculinity or femininity. Otherwise, trucker hats for women are no different from trucker hats for men.

The broad, solid fronts of trucker hats offer a larger space for embroidered logos than most other headwear. This isn’t surprising, as the hats were designed with promotional marketing in mind. So here’s to the trucker hat and the hard-working men and women who wear them!