Few items can add instant style to a warm-weather outfit as a Panama hat. Forever a classic, the best Panama hats channel the glamour of The Great Gatsby or Hunter S. Thompson, becoming a timeless yet ...

There’s a great artisan who resides in the village of Pile, in the hills outside Montecristi, a small town on a wide coastal plain along Ecuador’s western limit. His name is Simon Espinal, and his ...

CUENCA, Ecuador — The cool breeze in Cuenca, a city nuzzled in the Ecuadorian Andes at 8,000 feet elevation, blows through its cobblestone streets, rustling the skirts of indigenous women who wear ...

The Panama hat gained international attention when former President Teddy Roosevelt wore on the tightly-knit, wide-brimmed straw fedoras during a visit to the Central American nation. Since then, the ...

The "Panama hat" — characterised by a circular shape, thick band, and straw material — has long been a summer fashion staple. But while the headgear is beloved for its functional design that protects ...

Having a bad hair day? Toss on a hat. Arming yourself against potential downpours? Toss on a hat. Missing that certain je ne sais quoi? Toss on a hat. It seems so simple, but is anything in the ...

Inspired by Chanel's recent trip to Cuba and our own British summer, the panama hat is having a moment. "Invest in a good-quality panama hat and it will stay with you forever. Proper panamas are made ...

Despite their name, Panama hats are not made in Panama -- they're are made in Ecuador, and are woven by hand from a plant called the toquilla palm. And the finest of these hats is actually woven in a ...

When is a straw hat more like a work of museum-quality art? According to Hawaii-based haberdasher Brent Black (yes, that is his real name), it is when he’s selling it. Through his Panama Hat Company ...

For as long as he can remember, Brent Black, A&S '70, liked the feeling of nice things. As a child, he so often ran the creases of his mother's curtains through his fingers—delighting in the touch and ...

Early one morning in June, a Panama hat weaver named Simon Espinal sat down to work at a wooden table in his house in Pile, an obscure village hidden in the hills near Montecristi, in Ecuador's steamy ...