hat

Discovering Cartagena

More Articles By Phillip Bruce www.raxomnium.com

Buying A Decent Hat

One of the greatest pleasures of shopping in Cartagena is that some traditional old shops still survive. One of the very best is a great hat shop that is unchanged from the 1920s.

Here you can find all those hats you have always wanted such as fedoras, yachting caps, Panama’s, and raffish affairs that would have delighted Bertie Wooster and appalled Jeeves. The ladies who serve are very proud of their shop and say that it continues a long family tradition. Advertisements from half a century ago are plastered on the glass cases and remember a more elegant age. Big hat boxes are stacked up ready for your next cruise. Look out for the original gas jet light. When real hats were worn the only people who wore baseball caps were American baseball players. And as baseball is only rounders, which is played by girls, no English gentleman would have been seen dead in one.

The Panama hats sold in this wood and glass lined shop are the real thing, which means that they are made in Ecuador. The name has always annoyed Ecuadorians but it is explained by the fact that the hats they made with such loving care were sold to foreigners on ships passing through the Panama Canal.

An expert explains:

An original authentic Panama Hat is born from an art that originated in Ecuador many centuries ago. On the south-east coast of Ecuador, one of the oldest pre-Columbian cultures in America, the Valdiva (4,300BC-1,500BC) discovered a material so light, white and flexible that it was ideal for weaving into tocas, a fine cloth which they used to protect their heads from the tropical climate and the strong rays of the equatorial sun.

Tocas were hand woven from the long fronds of the toquilla plant. Centuries later King Charles IV of Spain and his wife, Maria Luisa, became intrigued and gave permission to the weavers for the establishment of workshops to develop their art/trade. In grateful recognition the botanists christened the toquilla palm tree “Carludovica Palmetta” in honour of the monarch. From those days on the material has gained a world wide reputation for its tremendous flexibility, strength and versatility.

From the weaving of a ductile and light straw into tocas started a process that evolved over 3,000 years and developed into an elegant “sombrero”, the world famous Panama Hat.

The hats are still made in the ancient manner today by skilled Ecuadorian craftsmen and the process takes up to 60 days to complete. The finished hats are then left in the sun to naturally bleach.

Wearing hats in climates with strong sunshine is not just a fashion statement as doctors advise that it is a very necessary protection for the eyes and against premature ageing and skin damage. People appearing in old sepia photographs wearing hats that look comical today were not as daft as they might appear.

The shop is located in Campos, which is leads onto the Plaza San Francisco and there is an excellent café on the pavement outside where you can sit with your new hat and a fat cigar and enjoy a drink.

A real Panama hat costs 45 Euros and you will be carefully fitted as to size. People do buy cheaper straw hats in inferior shops and in markets and the really vulgar wear them with coloured bands. Such people are best avoided.

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Gary Smith Fishing