Bucket hats have earned their place well beyond purely practical sun protection. The familiar brim and easygoing shape work with the kind of clothes already getting worn on ordinary days, while color and print give the hat enough presence to become part of the look. It can be useful and still be the reason the outfit got more interesting.

Some hats require a little consideration before leaving the house; a bucket hat tends to make itself pretty easy to wear. It works with casual clothes, vacation wardrobes, afternoons outside, and days spent wandering around without asking the rest of the outfit to become something it isn’t. There’s a reason the shape keeps finding its way back into closets decade after decade.

And then there’s the simple pleasure of having an accessory that gets to show off a lot of fabric. Prints take on a different life across the crown and brim, making a hat an especially good place for colors and patterns that deserve some room. Sometimes the hat ends up being the thing everything else gets dressed around.