Learning the craft
Sauna Hats
Working with Canadian wool to make sauna hats that show our Canadian pride.
Sauna hats are a small but distinctive part of sauna culture. Traditionally made from insulating materials such as wool or felt, they protect the head and ears from the intense heat while the rest of the body enjoys higher temperatures.
- 01
Learning to sew
Starting with a combination sewing and embroidery machine, studying traditional and contemporary designs, and learning the fundamentals.
- 02
Our own designs
Eventually, Sauna Culture Canada hats with embroidered logos and Canadian themes — and the same skills applied to shirts and other pieces.
- 03
Tokyo
A future trip to visit a specialist sauna-hat shop and learn from the creative hat culture that has grown up around Japanese saunas.
The plan
Learning to make a sauna hat
The project starts with buying a combination sewing and embroidery machine, studying traditional and contemporary sauna-hat designs, and learning the fundamentals of sewing and machine embroidery from the beginning.
The goal is eventually to design and make our own Sauna Culture Canada hats — embroidered logos, Canadian themes, original designs. The same skills would carry over to shirts and other pieces celebrating sauna culture.
This isn’t really about merchandise. It is another way to learn a sauna tradition by doing it: understanding how the thing is made, then making something distinctly Canadian out of it.
Why a hat at all
Wool and felt insulate. A hat keeps your head and ears cooler than the air around them, which lets the rest of you sit comfortably in a hotter room for longer. Beyond function, sauna hats are how we show our personality.
A shop in Tokyo
Japan has developed a particularly inventive sauna-hat culture. On a future trip we want to visit Best Sauna Hat, a specialist shop in Setagaya, Tokyo, and learn from people who have taken the form much further than anyone here has.
