Patagonia Baggies Brimmer Review

The Patagonia Baggies Brimmer Hat was our top pick for activities on the water and is a favorite Patagonia hat. But, it's much more versatile than just a hat for water sports. We took this hat backpacking, across large snowfields, rivers, and hot exposed terrain. We wore this hat in town on walks along the lake. We think this would be a great hat for anglers, paddlers, and kayakers, too. We found the Baggies Brimmer to be exceptionally comfortable and breathable when wearing it all day. It didn't heat up in the sun, and it kept the sun off our eyes. We found the dark underside of the bill helped with glare coming off water and snow. And, we loved the attention to detail that went into designing this hat.

Performance Comparison

Protection

The 3.25-inch brim on the Baggies Brimmer's provides very good coverage. It kept our eyes and nose shaded during peak sun exposure times. This hat feels good in the hot sun, much cooler than most products in this review. We found the brim to be stiff enough that it didn't blow around in windy situations. And, the darker fabric on the underside of the brim kept intense glares coming off of water and snow to a manageable level.

Though there are some hats with a wider brim in this review, we found the brim width on the Baggies Brimmer to be adequate for most activities. Really, we found most brims that were bigger than this one to be too big for anything more than lounging in the sun. When we're out moving around we want a brim that is big enough to provide good coverage but not so big that the hat feels awkward. This hat gets the brim size just right.

Comfort

We wore this hat all day and never felt the need to take it off. Some nice touches were put on the design of this hat to make it one of the most comfortable we tested. First, this hat uses Patagonia's Capilene fabric for the sweatband, which we found to be extremely soft and comfy on our foreheads. This material is extremely good at wicking moisture, too. It kept the sweat out of our eyes and cooled us down even more as it absorbed more sweat.

This hat uses a tiny piece of foam for a toggle on the chin strap, too. We found this made us forget the strap was even pulled tight. This feature, along with the elastic cinch cord around the crown of the hat, made the hat sit securely on our heads, no matter what the conditions. The big brim on this hat does partially block your visual field, but all wide-brimmed hats do that. This brim, though, can be folded up and out of the way when you need to see more. We also found the back part of the brim could be folded up so it didn't hit our large backpacks when backpacking, too.

Breathability

We found the breathability of the Baggies Brimmer to be better than most of the hats we tested. The hat's thin material seems like it would breathe well on its own, but there is also mesh built into the construction to increase airflow. The mesh wraps 360 degrees around the upper crown of this hat. And, in the front half, the mesh extends the entire height of the crown. As mentioned above, this hat made our heads feel cooler in the sun than when we weren't wearing it.

The mesh material used to increase ventilation on the Brimmer is combined with vent hold sewn all the way around the hat on the outside, too. Though, we did notice that the extra mesh on the front was sewn over, making us wonder it did anything being there. Either way, we found the hat to breathe incredibly well.

Durability

The Baggies Brimmer held up wonderfully on a week-long backpacking trip. We think this hat will last a long time to come, too. After being crushed in an elastic pocket, again and again, it quickly returns to how it looked brand new.

This hat dries very quickly, too. In fact, it dried faster than most of the other hats we tested. This is yet another reason why this hat gets our Top Pick award for water sports. So, go ahead and dunk this hat in the lake when you're starting to heat up. It will dry quickly and keep its shape all the while.

Style

Though most high-performing full brim hats do look a little bit silly, we think the Baggies Brimmer looks much better than its peers. When we asked others which hats looked the best, this one was often the one they would pick out of the full brimmed hats geared towards higher intensity activities. This hat doesn't set out to be the most stylish because those hats sacrifice performance for style. On the other hand, most technical sun hats look downright silly if you wear them out in town. The Baggies Brimmer walks a fine line, balancing just enough style with loads of performance features built it.

The brim on this hat has a beautiful pattern sewn into it, too. And though this crosshatched pattern looks good, it also serves to give the brim just enough rigidity to keep its form, even after being stuffed in a pocket. We think this is the most stylish bucket hat we've seen, and the just stiff enough brim is definitely the reason for this.

Value

Though this hat costs more than some other hats in this review, we think it's worth the price. We believe you will get years of great use out of this hat, and the comfort you'll get while wearing it will make it worth the price. A good hat will work in a wide variety of scenarios and keep you smiling while you're out there. This hat will do all that.

Conclusion