Handmade hats since 1969
Hats built to last a lifetime, not a season.
Bill Conner made hats in Byron Bay, Australia for over 50 years. Later his son Will began making hats with responsible materials — GOTS-certified organic cotton, non-mulesed Australian wool, hand-braided raffia, hemp and recycled fibers. Every hat is backed by our limited lifetime guarantee on workmanship.
Our roots
Australia is where this started.
On 5 November 1970 a 21-year-old leatherworker named Bill Conner landed in Brisbane with a few hundred dollars in his pocket, his 19-year-old wife Marion and their 11-month-old son Will. He opened a shop called Country Leather in Burleigh Heads, then moved an hour down the coast to Byron Bay and narrowed everything he made down to one thing: hats that could take the Australian sun, salt and rain.
He became the first person in Australia to build a leather hat with a shapeable brim. That hat, the Stockman, has been imitated around the world ever since. Bill made hats in Byron Bay for fifty years, and his son Will grew up on the factory floor.
You can travel the world on what you can make with your own two hands.
Stan Thompson, the leatherworker who taught Bill in St. Augustine in 1969
- 1969
- Bill Conner is taught leatherwork in St. Augustine, Florida
- Byron Bay
- Fifty years of hats made on the New South Wales coast
- The Stockman
- Australia's first leather hat with a shapeable brim, copied worldwide ever since
Where our hats come from
Conner Hats draws much inspiration from the three locations it is tied to.
-
Byron Bay, AustraliaWhere the hat designs come from
Bill's factory in the Arts and Industrial Estate, and the surf, wild landscape and original stockmen hat our designs are still drawn from.
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St. Augustine, FloridaWhere Bill learned his craft in 1969
Where Will runs the company, alongside the food forest and a space he created for other small businesses.
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American Fork, UtahWhere the hats now ship from
A family run high tech warehouse in cowboy horse country, at the foot of the Wasatch range.
Best sellers
The hats our customers keep coming back for
Sized S–XXL with big sizes available, each finished with an organic cotton sweatband and covered by our limited lifetime guarantee on workmanship.
Best seller spotlight
The Aussie Golf Soakable Mesh Hat. Dunk it, wear it, stay cool all round.
Soak the whole hat in water and it cools your head as it evaporates. A wide brim shades your face and neck, and the hat packs flat in a golf bag or a carry-on — just don’t bend the brim — and pops right back. If the mesh picks up a wrinkle, a little steam relaxes it out.
- $84
- Free US shipping over $79
- 4.9 stars
- 339 verified reviews
- S to XXXL
- Khaki, Sand, Tan, Chocolate
Love it! My Aussie Golf hat keeps me cool and well protected on the course so I can have fun longer!
-Brian
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Our story
From a teepee at a craft fair to hats on every continent.
Bill Conner started making leather hats in 1969 and introduced his son Will to the craft as a boy. Fifty years later Conner Hats is still family owned, still made with organic cotton, Australian wool and hand-braided raffia, and still answers to a limited lifetime guarantee.
Fifty-plus years, one hat at a time
- 1969
Taught leatherwork in St. Augustine
Stan Thompson teaches 20-year-old Bill Conner leatherwork in St. Augustine, Florida. He registers BC Leather and sells sandals, bags, belts and hats at craft fairs, often from a teepee that doubles as a playpen for baby Will.
- 1970
A one-way ticket to Australia
On 5 November 1970 Bill lands in Brisbane with his wife Marion and their 11-month-old son Will, chasing a hitchhiker's stories of cheap rent and empty surf.
- The 1970s
Burleigh Heads, then Byron Bay
Bill opens Country Leather in Burleigh Heads, then moves down the coast to Byron Bay and narrows everything he makes to one thing: hats. He builds Australia's first leather hat with a shapeable brim — the Stockman.
- 1982
The Man from Snowy River
The film puts the Australian stockman's hat on screens everywhere. Orders follow, and Bill hires his first employees, each taught to make one part of the hat to the standard he set by hand.
- 1986
Crocodile Dundee
Distributors start calling from around the world. Production moves from a workshop on Bill's property to a larger one in Byron Bay's Arts and Industrial Estate.
- 1988
Official hat of the World Expo
BC Hats becomes the official hat of the World Expo in Brisbane.
- 1989
A class laughed, so Will sold hats
Will tells his Flagler College class his business idea is selling Australian hats. The room laughs. He leaves after a semester and spends his college savings importing his father's hats into the United States.
- 1993
Exporter of the Year
The Australian government names Bill Small Business Exporter of the Year for New South Wales, for creating Australia's original shapeable-brim leather hat and taking it to the world.
- Seven years
Living in the warehouse
Will builds a sleeping space above his ten-by-ten-foot office and calls the warehouse home for seven years. It buys him the deposit on a house and the land the warehouse stands on today.
- 2000
Cov-ver
Will starts designing hats of his own under the name Cov-ver, beyond the range his father made in Australia.
- 2009
A coast full of washed-up plastic
How we make hats nowThirty-six days paddling open kayaks from Byron Bay to Bondi Beach, past humpback whales and some of the most pristine coast in the world — and stopping again and again to clear mounds of washed-up plastic. Will came home knowing he was part of the problem, and began stripping single-use plastic out of Conner Hats products and packaging.
- 2014
The Conner name goes on
Fourteen years of designing later, Will is proud enough of the hats to put the family name on them — and has never looked back.
- Since then
Our own hats, made responsibly
Organic cotton, responsibly sourced Australian wool, hemp, hand-braided raffia, renewable algae foam in place of petroleum foam, and recycled plastic instead of new.
- 25 years on
2,000 hoop pines in Byron Bay
Bill and Will planted 2,000 native hoop pines on their own land near Byron Bay and have grown them for over 25 years as a carbon offset, simply because it was the right thing to do.
- Today
Still a family business
Will runs Conner Hats from St. Augustine, Florida, beside the one-acre permaculture food forest, but the hats ship from an efficient warehouse in American Fork, Utah under a limited lifetime guarantee.
Scroll sideways to move through the years
Responsibility
Good hats should leave good things behind
"Responsibly grown, beautifully made" is a motto we have to keep earning. A little of it you can see on the hat. Most of it happened long before the hat reached you.
The wake-up call
In 2009 Will and a group of friends spent 36 days paddling open kayaks down the east coast of Australia, Byron Bay to Bondi Beach. Between humpback whales and some of the most pristine shoreline in the world, they kept stopping to clear mounds of washed-up plastic. He came home understanding he was part of the problem, and the work to strip single-use plastic out of Conner Hats products and packaging began.
How that changed the hats
An acre of food forest
Next to the one-acre warehouse in St. Augustine sits another acre we are turning into a food forest with permaculturist Geoff Lawton. It captures the warehouse's carbon, grows food for the local community, and keeps our impact somewhere we have to look at it every day. It broke ground in 2018 and we have harvested our first bounties.
Take a look at the forest
We had our materials tested
Prizing durable materials did not automatically make them good for the planet, so we hired a third-party company to test everything we use for harmful chemicals. Since then we have moved to organic cotton and responsibly sourced wool, replaced petroleum-based foam with renewable algae foam, and use only recycled plastic in our designs.
Our materials and certificationsNot all of our materials are perfect. Sustainability is, and always will be, an evolving task.
Find your hat
Which Conner hat is right for you?
Shop by what you will actually be doing in it. Most styles run S through XXL, with big sizes available.
For full-sun days outdoors
Choose a UPF 50+ wide-brim style in water-resistant cotton or wool — the Bounty Hunter, Indy Jones or Jackeroo. Shapeable brims hold their shape even after a soaking.
Shop hiking hatsFor heat, water and fishing
Pick breathable mesh or recycled styles. The Aussie Golf soaks and shakes dry, and the Tarpon Springs Recycled Floating Sailing Hat is built to float.
Shop fishing & boatingFor travel and everyday wear
Crushable wool and packable cotton shapes that fold into a bag and reshape by hand — the Jackeroo, Quincy gambler and Merrik newsboy cap.
Shop packable & travelResponsibly grown, beautifully made
What your hat is actually made of
We hired a third-party company to test all of our materials for harmful chemicals, then rebuilt our sourcing around what passed. Here is where it stands today.
GOTS organic cotton
Non-GMO, grown without synthetic pesticides and traceable from fiber to sweatband, with fair and safe working conditions verified at every step.
GOTS certified
Non-Mulesed wool
Sourced from certified farms that champion animal welfare, land health and clear traceability. Naturally water-repellent, breathable and biodegradable.
Responsible Wool Standard
Bloom algae foam
The padding inside your hat is not petroleum foam — it is harvested invasive algae biomass, which returns cleaned freshwater to the habitat it came from.
Bloom partner since 2018
Recycled plastic bottles
Lightweight outdoor styles use Repreve fibers made from ocean-bound plastic — around five bottles per hat. Strong, quick-drying and fade-resistant.
Repreve traceable
bluesign approved processes
Materials processed with less water and energy, without harsh chemicals, and away from coal-based energy.
bluesign approved
Plant-based Yulex and raffia
Yulex natural rubber replaces fossil-fuel neoprene, and our raffia is hand-braided from the raffia palm — fully biodegradable and packable.
FSC / PEFC sourcedWe partner with the best to make our hats the cleanest.
Conner Hats works with GOTS-certified organic cotton, bluesign-approved textile processes, Responsible Wool Standard wool, and Repreve recycled fiber. Independent lifecycle analysis from GOTS and Textile Exchange found organic cotton production uses 91% less water and 62% less energy than conventional cotton — the difference these certifications are built to guarantee.
As seen in
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Conner Hats has handcrafted hats since 1969, using materials like organic cotton, wool, hand-braided raffia, hemp, and leather and more.
Conner Hats sources materials through partners certified by GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard), bluesign, the Responsible Wool Standard, and works with Repreve recycled materials, Bloom Foam and Yulex. The company also runs its warehouse on solar power.
Yes. Hats bought on connerhats.com carry a limited lifetime guarantee on our workmanship: if our workmanship fails we replace the hat free, and we cover shipping in the first 12 months. After 12 months we provide a 40% replacement discount. If a hat is ever lost or stolen, we offer 50% off the same hat. Read the full guarantee.
Conner Hats offers free shipping on all orders of $79 or more, plus free 30-day exchanges within the USA through ReDo.
Bill Conner learned leatherwork in St. Augustine, Florida in 1969, then emigrated to Australia in November 1970 and made hats in Byron Bay for over 50 years, where the brand developed its design roots. The company now ships from American Fork, Utah. Hats are made in Australia and in small family factories in Sri Lanka, China, Pakistan, Mexico and the USA.
Conner Hats sells cowboy hats, outback hats, fedoras, sun hats, hiking hats, golf hats, and more, in materials ranging from felt and leather to organic cotton and raffia.
Most styles run small through XXL, and a dedicated Big Sized range fits larger head circumferences. Measure around your head just above the ears and match it to the size chart on the product page.
Spot clean cotton and mesh styles with cool water and mild soap, brush wool felt with a soft brush in one direction, and let leather dry naturally away from direct heat. Shapeable brims can be bent and reset by hand, including after getting wet.