Panama Hat articles from the web

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcPuVin61yc

This hatter lost his voice from chemicals used in hat production: I believe his hats were considered among the finest in Cuenca. Looks like he was a very sprightly guy! He's passed on, but his family have taken over the business.

 

Hard to find first edition Panama-A Legendary Hat large hard cover "coffee table" book for sale.
Comprehensive history of Panama hats with focus on the Montecristis. Great color photographs.
No longer in print.
See ad in classified or contact me with questions.

 

^^^^^^

 

Great picture, Tom!

 

That's a publicity still, isn't it? Or would a weaver be seen working on a hat in full sunlight, away from the shack, and without a supporting pole?

 

Sure, go ahead and ruin it for me!

(If you have something to tell me about the Easter Bunny, I'm not listening.)

 

lol

I know, nobody likes a smart sitting device. The temptation was too much, though.

 

Randall, chin up, my good man! While the breathtaking picture likely was taken for PR purposes, it almost certainly depicts a highland Indian or Chola of Azuay or Cañar Province, weaving a Brisa-weave Cuenca 'en plein air'. Note the coarse paja.

The thousands of(mostly) women weavers of these provinces are seldom separated from the hats on which they work, weaving in the fields, on the bus, wherever they may be, and at all hours of the day, producing tens of thousands of these coarse hats which they sell in the markets of Azogues, Biblián, or Cuenca itself.

A first-person narrative of the straw market at Azogues, in Tom Miller's excellent "The Panama Hat Trail: A Journey From South America": "Dozens of barefoot women sat behind piles of straw, laughing at jokes told in a raspy, high-pitched Quichua cackle. The straw in Azogues cost between two and three and a half cents a tallo, the thinner and more uniform paja at the upper end of the scale. The women who sell straw to weavers, usually weavers themselves, earn about half a penny above cost for each tallo. On a good market day they might make a dollar or more. During the rest of the week they often sit in their doorways at home, weaving hats while waiting for others to come and buy straw they've laid out on the sidewalk before them. Weavers who get just five tallos for coarse hats often buy enough for three or more hats at a time..."

They use the same paja toquilla from the Carludovica palmata in weaving their hats, but in many ways they are a world away from the weavers patiently creating their incomparable masterpieces in the thatched-roof huts of the dusty little villages of Manabi Province.

 

Great info, Al! Thanks very much for sharing.

 

The pleasure was mine, Nik. :yo:

Besides, I could not bear watching Randall's belief in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy utterly shattered!

 

+1!

 

I've seen women walking around Azuay and Canar provinces while weaving...

I'll add that Cuenca hats, in their top weaves, rival the equal weave in Montecristi. Also, the Peruvian family we've just found, weaves just as well as in Montecristi, yet their hats are more stout/hardy. They won't weave anything over 400 weaves per inch, so I'll have to increase the bonus $.

 

They truly seem inseparable from the hats they're weaving... thank you for the info, Robert.