Whence
Panama hat
Fashion

Where does Panama hat come from?

The Panama hat comes from Ecuador. It is woven by hand from toquilla straw in places from Montecristi near the Pacific coast to Cuenca in the Andes, and it got its misleading name from the place where travellers bought it.

Woven from toquilla straw

The hats are made from the leaves of Carludovica palmata, the toquilla palm, a palm-like plant of Ecuador's coast. Farmers harvest the stems and separate the fibre from the green outer skin, then boil it, dry it and bleach it with sulfur over a wood fire. Weavers then make the crown and the brim; a hat can take anywhere from one day to eight months, depending on its fineness. In 2012 UNESCO listed the weaving as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Sold on the isthmus

In the 19th century Ecuador's straw hats, like many South American goods, were shipped first to the Isthmus of Panama and sold on from there, so they took the name of the place of sale. The term 'Panama hat' appears in print by 1828. Trade boomed with the California Gold Rush: prospectors crossing the isthmus on their way to California needed a hat for the sun, and by 1850 exports of woven straw hats to the United States reached 220,000 a year.

Why people say Panama

Workers building the Panama Canal wore the hats against the harsh sun, and in 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt inspected the canal works in a white linen suit and one of the Ecuadorian hats. The photos launched a fashion. Panama does have its own traditional straw hat: the pinta'o of Coclé province, with dark patterns woven into it, which UNESCO listed in 2017.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · ich.unesco.org ↗ · smithsonianmag.com ↗

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