Panama, is a word we prononce every day in a hat shop.

The funny thing is that the origin is from Ecudor!

As we love it, let's travel a little bit to South America and in the Past...

Source: Archives RPI

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During the construction of the Panama Canal, workers from all over the world bought Ecuadorian straw hats to protect themselves from the sun.

Panama serves as a commercial showcase for South America.

The straw hat is called panama despite its Ecuadorian origin.

In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt wore this hat during his visit of the Chaenel and helped to popularize the "Panama Hat".

Parisians are quickly adopting this headdress considered elegant, which could be the origin of the nickname "Paname" given to Paris.

Source : The White House History

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Panama is one of the traditional and secular components of the dress code of a number of tribes in southern Ecuador.

Some high quality Panamas may require more than six months of manufacturing (up to ten months of weaving).

There are three ways of weaving panama: brisa, cuenca, and montecristi (Montecristi is a town in the Manabi region,

between the Pacific coast and the Andes, where the Panamas originate); each way has its particular weaving point and

its position to make it; weaves himself sitting in Cuenca but standing at Montecristi, leaning over his work.

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The name panama does not apply to a form but to a material: the fiber of young shoots of palm trees of Ecuador.

Originally, it was made exclusively in sheets of bombanaxa.

Some models of Panamas, very thin and high-end, can bend and roll without losing their shape.

Other models, equally good, receive a primer that prevents them from being rolled, their straw being stiffened so that

the original shape is preserved for several years.

The fact that this hat was worn by prestigious heads of state and movie stars helped add to the prestige and legend of the most famous straw hat.

This product, woven entirely by hand, is at all prices according to the fineness of the straw: some models like the

panama Montecristi extra fino can exceed one thousand euros.

Find all our Panama Hats in Summer Section... few for the moment but more to come!

Source: The Economist

Text Source: Wikipédia