Back when I biked to work on a regular basis, one of the biggest annoyances about each trip (besides those horrible clouds of bugs every biker occasionally hits) came from my resoundingly inelegant bike helmet. That was back in the mandatory-safety-land better known as Canada, where I felt slightly embarassed not wearing one, and was never sure whether I could be subjected to a fine for going without.

The reason my specific helmet was so damn annoying was partly due to the puffy-yet-thick mess of hair that rests ontop of my oversized head, ensuring no helmet ever looked anything but stupid and silly, but also because, for the life of me, I couldn’t find a helmet I liked to look at. I wanted a matte finish, simple, black, understated, like a skateboarding helmet. “Oh, you’ll sweat like a madman with that,” people told me. I didn’t care. I sweat anyway.

I finally found one halfway to those specifications and figured that was the best I could do. Eventually, I kept thinking, if only due to their increased proliferation, style will have to become a consideration when we talk about bike helmets–otherwise why even bother colouring them, if you’re not going to put some thought into what your head looks like while you’re biking around?

From what I can gather, bike helmets are generally divided into two depressing camps: the light, ugly racing ones, and the heavy, less-ugly BMX ones. Until recently I’d never seen any kind of radical re-design that brought any great aesthetic innovation to bear on the bike helmet, but new Danish company Yakkay has miraculously come up with a god-that-seems-so-obvious-in-hindsight concept that works wonders on the style front. If only they’d existed back when I was biking a lot, I could have been travelling around with what looked like an actual hat, albeit one that happened to contain a small strap coming out the bottom, saving my head from certain injury.

The reason Yakkay’s idea is a little bit revolutionary–and it’s something I’d never thought about before, but probably should have–is because it asserts that the shiny/matte finish of a normal bike helmet isn’t what we need to see. We don’t have to see all the plastic and foam that’s in place to protect our head, because it’s there to protect, not to be looked at. If we fall off our bike, it’s time to get a new helmet, anyway, so why not put some less-than-indestructible material on there to make it look good for the duration?

Yakkay decided the best thing to put overtop of the helmet was a fashionable hat. Genius! And not only have they done it with their wonderful Paris-style helmet, they’ve even gone and produced what they called the Izmir, which looks just like a jockey helmet. I think it’s a sly joke about bike helmets–if you’re going to wear a stupid round black thing on your head, at least look like an elegant, bourgeois horse-jumper while you’re at it.

It’s an idea that now seems ridiculously obvious. I’m sure I’ve seen someone who’s bought an oversized hat of some kind and popped it on top of a bike helmet, and yet Yakkay are the first to take it one step further–streamlining the process, fitting a series of different and stylish hats to the helmets, and releasing them to market. Innovative and simple as anything–love it.