Care
Straw is a plant, and it responds to how it is treated.
None of this is complicated and none of it takes long. It is the difference between a hat that lasts several summers and one that cracks at the end of its first.
01
Keep it out of dry heat
Radiators, hot cars, a sunlit shelf in a closed room. Heat drives the moisture out of the fibre, and a fibre with no moisture in it snaps instead of bending. One afternoon on a parked car's rear shelf is enough to do permanent damage.
02
Mist, do not soak
A fine mist of plain water two or three times a season keeps the braid supple. Soaking is a different matter: wet straw takes on whatever shape it is left in and keeps it once dry.
03
Store it off its brim
Upside down resting on the crown, or in a box. Anything set on top of a brim leaves a wave in it, and a wave in a wide brim is very hard to press back out.
Storage
Three ways. One of them wrong.
In a box
Best for anything with a wide or stiff brim. Leave the lid off in damp weather — straw wants air.
Upside down on the crown
Perfectly good for everyday hats. It keeps all weight off the brim edge.
Under anything at all
This is the one that ruins hats. A stack of folded linens will put a permanent buckle in a brim within a week.
Packing
Rolling is not
folding.
A roll spreads the stress along the whole length of the braid. A fold concentrates all of it on one line, which is why a folded hat comes back with a crease and a rolled one does not.
Every product page states which of the two a hat will take — folds, rolls, both, or neither. Wheat and rye will take neither: they crack.
The packable line
What each straw asks for.
Raffia
Broad matte ribbons, soft in the hand, quiet when handled.
Raffia stays in — it folds without complaint.
Paper straw
Machine-even twists, crisp, the lightest of the five.
Paper straw stays in — it folds, though the creases stay visible.
Wheat straw
Round glossy stalks with a faint grassy smell on a warm day.
Wheat straw drops out: it holds shape but cracks if folded.
Rye straw
Coarser and stiffer than wheat, amber going to brown.
Rye straw drops out first: it will not fold at all without breaking.
Toquilla-style fine weave
Hair-thin fibres, silky, closer to cloth than to braid.
Fine weave drops out near the top: the rollable versions coil, the blocked ones do not fold.
When it is not care, it is a defect
Braid coming apart, a sweatband lifting away from the crown, a brim failing at the structure rather than at the surface — none of that is ageing and none of it is your fault. It is covered by the three-year legal guarantee. Write to support@signeshats.live with a photograph and we will take it from there.
Read the guarantee