Heritage Β· The Montecristi Β· Since 1878
A hat older than
its own name.
Long before the world called it a “Panama”, the toquilla-straw hat was woven on the coast of Ecuador. This is how it reached the world β and how the Carranza family has woven it since 1878.
Before the name
Woven before Europe arrived.
For the pre-Columbian peoples of the coasts of what is now Ecuador and Peru, the toquilla palm β Carludovica palmata β was a plant of daily use. From its fibre they wove baskets for cocoa and fruit, roofs for shelter, and traps to catch fish.
Basketry was their great technology, and it spread across the Americas. The hat was simply its finest expression β and the Spaniards, arriving centuries later, described a craft already old.
The colony
Old technique, new tools.
The Spaniards brought the charcoal iron, the press, the needle and sulphur. Married to the weaving techniques already native to the coast, these gave the modern toquilla-straw hat its form β and the workshops of ManabΓ their trade.
Records of the craft survive in the General Archive of the Indies, created at the request of Charles III in 1785.
1900s Β· The Panama Canal
How it became the “Panama”.
The turning point came with the digging of the inter-oceanic canal across the Isthmus of Panama, where tens of thousands of these hats shaded the workers. When a president was photographed at the works in white linen and a toquilla hat banded in black, the image travelled the world β and the name “Panama” stuck to a hat that was never made there.
In good company
Worn at the highest tables.
