UN Special N° 647 Janviere · January 2006 

Panama hats are made exclusively in Ecuador and are woven by hand from a plant called the Toquilla. The Panama hat has been worn for centuries with its origins being traced back as far as the 16th Century when the Incas were the first to use the Toquilla plant to produce hats. The hat in fact only became known as the Panama when over a century ago the workers involved in the construction of the Panama Canal used the elegant fibre hats as protection against the burning sun. Its popularity was further enhanced when in 1906 President Th. Roosevelt was photographed wearing a Panama hat whilst viewing the Panama Canal under construction.
Although the post war period saw a marked decline in the overall popularity of the Panama hat, it is now seeing a return to its original highly regarded status, which can be largely attributed to its appearance in various period films and television series.
One important feature of the Panama is that every hat is unique. The weaving of the Panama hats is a cottage industry carried out primarily in the districts of Manabi and Azuay, near Cuenca in Ecuador. A skill that has been passed down from generation to generation.
Panama hats vary in the time they take to be woven. Some of the coarser woven hats may take a few hours whereas the finer hats from the town Montecristi may take up to 5 months to weave, eventually fetching a retail price of up to $1500.00 Unfortunately this in no way reflects the many hours of work required of a craftsman to weave such a fine product.
The greatest weavers work only by the light of the moon or when the sky is overcast. Constantly dipping their sharp pointed fingers in water, they split the fibre razor thin, and with all the virtuosity of a spinning wheel, plait ring after ring of palm into fabric so soft and dense that it equals silk. The hats are then pummelled and trimmed and groomed and scrubbed.
The finest panamas have a silk, creamy smooth texture in which the weave is barely perceptible, but if held up to the light, a spiral of rings will be seen spanning out from the apex of the crown.
These concentric rings or vueltas indicate where new strands have been started in the weaving process. It is the number of vueltas that determines the quality of the Panama. In the cheaper and most common quality that might take a day or two to weave, there may be up to ten «vueltas» whereas in the finer quality or «finos» there could be as many as forty.