Oriental War Hat

This metal conical hat or Jingasa is a mix of fantasy and fact.

The feudal Japanese foot soldiers wore for battle what is called a Jingasa.

Jingasa can be many shapes including conical and are made from many different materials iron, copper, wood, paper, bamboo, or leather, some were conical, some more curved.

This Jingasa, in this case, is not made from any of the material of feudal Japan as its a repurposed spun aluminium cone.

Sprayed and decorated with strips of cloth.

Party Fu

This is another Chinese novelty hat.

Looking through the odd hat book or two and websites, I can't really find anything historically like this.

The best I can come up with is novelty costume makers mixed Asian conical rice paddy hat with some oriental looking fabric and inventy this themselves. 

I as always may be proved wrong

Can be found Amazon, E-Bay and many other places for about £5 just search for Chinese hat

Nón lá

A simple straw hat.

This hat is a typical Asian farmers Coolie Hat, Rice Paddy hat, Non-la, used as an evaporation cooling device when dipped in water and sun protection. 

The conical shape is mainly Vietnamese, but still worn in other Asian countries.

The bamboo in this one woven to create a raised pineapple skin texture

Rice Paddy Hat With Danglely Bits

The Vietnamese conical rice farmers hat or Non La can be made of straw, palm leaves, bamboo or matting.

What makes the Vietnamese style stands out from other Asian straw hats is its it perfect cone shape, tapering smoothly from top point to rim.

Like all straw hats they are used as protection from sun and rain, but can be soaked/dipped in water and used as a cooling aid as the water evaporates.

Many of these hat have hand stictched words on them or poems, this one has ribbon dangling from its brim, which are purely for decoration.

Pointy Bamboo Hat

This conical bamboo hat has a nice pointy shape.

Bamboo hats of this style are designed to protect the head and face of farm workers from the sun and rain.

Other English names for the conical hat include sedge hat, rice hat, paddy hat, bamboo hat, Raiden hat and sometimes coolie hat. 

But in Malay they are called the Terendak, In China Douli which translate to Bamboo Hat, in Japan Sugegasa, the Do'un in Cambodian and there are many more regional names

Basotho hat

The Basotho Hat is the traditional hat of Losotho a country totally surrounded by South Africa, known as the Kindom of the Sky since its almost entirely situated 1000 feet above sea level.

The Hat is also known as the Mokorotlo and is the only hat to appear on a national flag, it appeared until 1986 and was linked to the royal heritage of the county.

Conical in shape and made of straw, its should have 5 rings at the top where the straw ends meet, the 5th centre ring as below joins the others together in a symbolic union.

The shape was possible inspired by shape of Qiloane mountain which is near the fortress of a early Losotho king, called Moshoeshoe I.

I have used this to represent oriental culture, which is totally wrong since its African not Asian, but it works well, since most people would not know much about its true background.

Below my hat being used during a event, by one of the crew.

Fancy Dress Oriental Hat

This is a joke shop Chinese hat based on the conical coolie hat.

The shape is authentic, but the rest as far as can tell is pure fantasy, but for the purposes of larp, fancy dress, even theatre it is instantly recognisable as oriental headgear.

You can find them all over eBay and Amazon for about a five pounds, for your quick oriental character.

They often come with a pigtails, this one did but I removed it.

Oriental Straw Hat

This oriental/asian hat is a kind of rice paddy/coolie hat, however they normally go to a point on the top, so I guess this is more like the Japanese Kasa Hat.

Made overly large, the word kasa can also mean umbrella.
Also this is not made of straw but bamboo.

This hat was purchased at Larp fair, but I've seen its twin for sale on ebay

Straw hats = Any type of hat made of straw or bamboo