Origin Story of Wallaroo Hat Company

As told by Stephanie Carter, President & Co-Founder

The Trip to Australia That Started Everything

The beginning of Wallaroo Hat Company can be traced to 1998, when my husband Michael and I were in Australia, staying with his parents on their property. On the second to last day before returning to the US, we were having lunch when I looked out the window and saw his mom gardening in a very attractive, colorful cotton sun hat.

I had never seen a hat like that before and I discovered it was a packable cotton sun hat in a lovely periwinkle color. I looked at the label, because that's what I always do when I see something I like. I wanted to know who made it so I could purchase one. Over the years, I’ve observed that this is what women typically do. When we see something that catches our attention, we try to find out as much as we can about it so that we can find it for ourselves and buy it.

Two days later, at the Sydney Airport, I rushed around the airport with my 2 year-old son on my back, trying to find a shop that sold these hats. Not only did I buy several hats that day, but I also learned that the Australian Cancer Council made the hats, and they were sold at Australian Council stores all over Australia.

I took the hats back to Boulder and started wearing them all over town and on the local hiking trails.

And then something happened…whenever I was on a trail, people would stop me and say, “I love that hat. Where did you get it?”

The thing is, being the hat person that I am, I knew that this hat was different, and others were noticing it too. I certainly had never seen anything like it. All the hats I had owned previously were made from raffia or palm straw. This one was made of cotton, meaning it could be washed and would last much longer. It could also be packed, making it much easier to travel with. Plus, it had a unique shape. As it turned out, this hat was the one we founded our company around.

We called this first hat “The Casual Traveler.” I love it because it's made out of a cotton canvas material and cut on the bias, so you can shape the brim up or down and it doesn't have any wire in the brim to hold the shape. It’s the perfect look - a round crown top with a folded-up brim. It's still one of our most popular styles 26 years later.

The Pivotal Moment That Led to Wallaroo Hat Company

After a few weeks of people approaching me and asking about the hat, I decided to do more research. I asked my father-in-law to make some calls for me and find out who the designer was. Within a few days I learned the designer’s name and how to contact him. I took it upon myself to give him a call and I explained that I was an attorney and wanted to form a company in the United States and sell his hats. I proposed that we could work together if he wanted to collaborate and help me do some of the designing. We hit it off from day one and two weeks later, Wallaroo Hat Company was born.

The Early Years of Wallaroo Hat Company

In the early days of Wallaroo, we started by bringing in some of the hats our Australian designer had designed for the Australian Cancer Council. It was a great arrangement because we knew what was selling well in the Australian market, which was six months ahead of us in fashion and season. This was a huge advantage as they could always tell us which hats were winners, and which hats weren’t. This helped us determine the hats we should and shouldn't sell and allowed us to get a head-start on our competitors and achieve early success in our company. We wanted to learn from our Australian partners and figure out how to run a successful hat company in the United States.

The Importance of Skin Cancer Prevention

One of the amazing things we learned from our Australian collaboration was the importance of ultraviolet sun protection ratings. Australia has suffered from a high incidence of skin cancer due to the hole in the ozone layer, so they are serious about their sun protection. We caught onto this mission early on and Wallaroo became pioneers of the Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) movement in the United States.

Today when you go shopping, you’ll notice that clothing, swimsuits, hats, and almost everything we wear have UPF ratings. But in 1999, when I started Wallaroo, there were no ratings on clothing, pieces of headwear… or anything really.

We were leaders in the Sun Protection Movement in the United States, really putting our efforts on sun protection, education, prevention, and research. We started partnering with many organizations who deal with skin cancer eradication - it was important for me to ensure we aligned ourselves with organizations that had similar missions.

Turning Heads Around the World

Just as I noticed my mother-in-law’s hat, Wallaroo hats continue to catch attention worldwide. Women and men who are golfing, shopping, vacationing, or walking down the beach report that people stop them all the time and say, “Oh my God, I love your hat. Can I see what brand it is?” People will ask to see the brand and style name to find and order it.

Wallaroo has become a ubiquitous hat company. Our goal was to price our products so they are affordable and make sure that our styles are timeless and made from high-quality materials so people can enjoy them season after season. Our customers also love the color options and variety, so you will often find that we have customers with the same hat in five or six colors.

It's been a wonderful adventure for the last 26 years, and I look forward to continuing to make high quality stylish products with sun protection for many years to come.