HEADS UP Soaring sales reflect Americans' love of hats

Hats are popular with all age groups.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
The young are bringing hats back.
The trend started with baseball caps, lowliest of the low on the totem pole of fashion. Young people turned them backwards for effect. They slid them sideways, tilting the visor for a flash of panache.
Celebs such as Britney Spears and J.Lo raised the bar, sporting poor-boy caps to top off an alluring pose. Teens and 20-somethings began following their lead. And trendy women in their 30s and 40s picked up on the trend.
Hot sales
Hat sales have climbed 5 to 15 percent every year since the mid-1980s, according to numbers collected by the New York-based Headwear Information Bureau. Last year, Americans spent $1.04 billion on hats, up from $992 million in 2002, says Casey Bush, founder and director of the bureau that represents the hat industry.
"Kids are wearing hats to express themselves," she says. "They're wearing them for the same reason older people do. They're saying 'Here I am!' They don't want to fade into the woodwork."
Whether or not the youth-driven trend has yet engulfed the Midwest, now's the time of year when hat sales always go up, hat sellers say.
Mushrooming numbers of Red Hat Society followers are boosting sales, too, of fancy flowered hats, handsome feathered hats and funky casual hats. For the Red Hatters, members of the international group for 50-plus women-who-lunch, almost any hat will do. Just as long as it's red.
New converts pad the ranks of a small but faithful old guard of hat wearers: women who started wearing hats decades ago because their mothers did, and haven't quit. And we can't forget the rows of Baptist church women, who've long considered hats nearly as sacred as Sunday service itself.
Shopping guide
UWalk into the store with an open mind.
UTell the salesperson you're going to be there for a while.
UTry on everything that catches your eye. Using a hand mirror, check the front, back and side views of your face in each hat.
UChoose four or five hats you like.
UThen check each look out in a full-length mirror, thinking about proportion with your body. If there's no full-length mirror in the store, take a salesperson outside and use a window to see your reflection.
UGo with your gut.
UWomen with a larger build usually look better in a larger hat. Some large hats can dwarf a smaller person, who usually looks better in a smaller hat.
USome hairstyles aren't a match with certain hat styles, but there is no hairstyle without a hat to match. Longer hair is more adaptable because it can be pulled back or looped behind the ears. Many hats are flattering to almost any hairstyle.