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Story: Rural clothing

Broad-brimmed hats

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Broad-brimmed hats

In early New Zealand if you lost your hat you needn’t worry if you had a weaver in your party. Broad-brimmed hats, such as the ones shown in Walter Mantell’s 1848 drawing of a surveying party near Moeraki, could easily be woven from cabbage-tree or flax leaves.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: E-334-089

by Walter Baldock Durrant Mantell

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Bronwyn Labrum, Rural clothing – Hats, footwear and oilskins, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/18482/broad-brimmed-hats (accessed 25 June 2026).

Story by Bronwyn Labrum, published 1 March 2009.