The News
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The century-old Panama hat is back in fashion blogs and on runways around the world, its beige-colored palm fronds adding a classic touch to hipsters, artists and fashionistas alike. But the hats in Mexico City are still a bit under the radar, and finding an original make or a fresh design might require a dedicated search.
Sombreros Tardan is a great place to start. Nestled between jewelry shops around the Zócalo, the Centro Histórico hat shop off the "Panama Brisa" line retains all the defining characteristics of the original "sombrero panameño" : jipijapa palm fibers woven intricately into a double-crested headpiece with a low, sloping brim and embellished with a smooth black or brown ribbon.
And, like the earliest models, the palm fronds come from Ecuador, an often-unknown detail of the misnamed hats.
The head-toppers began their legacy in the town of Jipijapa, Ecuador, where the palm species was first discovered and where it continues to be hand crafted in humid caves, a space necessary to keep fibers malleable. The town of Montecristi is also an Ecuadorian production powerhouse for the hats.
The hats first gained fame in the early 1900's on the heads of Panama Canal workers - hence the moniker.
ORIGINAL MAKES
Marco Antonio Guerrero, a salesman at Tardan, says while the store imports the raw materials, the fibers are entwined and molded into hats in the back of the Mexico City shop.
To prepare the fibers for hat making, the palm fronds in Ecuador are stripped into threads and exposed to the sun for a day or so; they're then immersed in boiling water and left to dangle in the shade to bleach.
Tardan offers two grades of Panama hats in the shop. The G3 is thicker and more rigid and sells for around 575 pesos. The G8 is a finer weave, so flexible that it can be folded or rolled up and retain its original shape, and it costs nearly 2,000 pesos. Both grades come in shades of natural beige, the grayish "putty" and the brown "café."
Guerrero recommends splashing the hats lightly with water twice a month to restore their moisture and to keep them pliable.
Panama hats can also be found in several smaller Centro Histórico shops, down the narrow, crowded Tabaqueros side street just off Ave. Venustiano Carranza.
Jandette, for example, is a hole-in-the-wall shop whose entrance is covered by dangling straw sombreros and cowboy hats. The store also imports Ecuadorian palm fronds for its Panama hats, which sell for 300 pesos when rigid and 1,000 pesos with a finer weave. Floppy, wide-brimmed hats for women with rounded headpieces and thick red ribbons sell for 280 pesos.
In a shop across the alley, demarcated only by its No. 18 address, shop worker David Diaz Macedo said that many people come in looking for Panama hats but that most customers are foreigners.
The store sells Panama hats with a thick, plaster-like shell for 150 pesos and floppy-brimmed pieces for 300 pesos. Materials for the hats come from Ecuador and are weaved and pressed in San Francisco del Rincón in Guanajuato.
MODERN SUBSTITUTES
Mexico's Yucatán region is also a leading Panama hat producer; the town of Bécal in the Campeche state turns out thousands of the jipijapa hats each year. But while workers once worked fervently to meet thriving international demand, the town has lost its competitive edge to cheaper imports and material substitutes.
These trendy new additions, however, have only a limited hold in Mexico City.
Lemur, a fashion boutique in the city's Roma Norte neigboorhood, holds exclusive retailer rights for Panama hats by the California-based clothing company Modern Amusement and British-made Brixton Ltd.
The Modern Amusement hats mimic the traditional Panama weave, but with paper straw. The Fedora-style headpieces come in black, gray and beige and sell for around 790 pesos. The Brixton Ltd. hats are also paper straw and go for 600 pesos.
Other shops neighboring Lemur were stocked full of scarves, logo T-shirts and designer sneakers, but none carried more than a single Panama hat made in China, selling for around 250 pesos.
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