The Montecristi Diaries, November 2004 20 Nov - Twenty minutes of terror. That would be the taxi trip from Manta to Montecristi. I‘ve made this trip a couple of hundred times over the years. And still, every trip, I nearly punch a hole in the floor of the taxi, trying to stomp the brake pedal...
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Authentic, classic Panama hats are not made in Panama. They are, and always have been, made in Ecuador. So why are they called Panama hats if they really come from Ecuador? Good question. The way-too-short answer is that the hats were purchased in Panama and the buyers didn’t know where they were made. (Hey,...
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Have you always wanted to go to the true home of the Panama hat (Ecuador) but don’t want to deal with the hassle of airplane travel? Thanks to the magic of the internet, you can experience Ecuador in the comfort of your own home (or wherever you happened to have found a strong wi-fi...
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The following piece was written by author and world-traveler Roff Smith. You might remember Roff’s recent adventures with curious cheetah cubs. In the continuing quest to discover just how a hat from Ecuador came to be called a “Panama hat,” Roff has turned up a clue that hints the misnomer appeared much earlier than...
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Kentucky Smith™ may not be as famous as that Jones guy from across the river in Indiana, but he wears a better-looking hat. There are other differences. Kentucky Smith™ maintains a tropical state of mind at all times, in all places. Almost like a religion. Makes Jimmy Buffett look like Nanook of the North....
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I love these. True, they are not Montecristi Panama hats. True, I am a hat snob, a total Montecristi nut case. But I really like these. They are genuine Panama hats, hand woven in Ecuador, hand blocked by me. The weave is nice and even, the count is comparable to some of my Montecristi...
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How’s Simón doing? Better. Both artistically and financially. No, I don’t have any photos of Simón with his new SUV in front of his new McMansion. But he is most definitely a success story. Before we began to work together, he could not earn enough from weaving to support his family. He worked on...
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Those are the hands of Simón Espinal. Son sin iguales, los manos de Simón Espinal: They are without equals, the hands of Simón Espinal. I searched for fifteen years to find those hands. Those hands create the finest hand-woven hats on planet earth. Possibly, the finest ever. Hats that are, quite literally, the stuff...
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Entirely hand-woven in Ecuador, the finest Panama hats can require months to complete. But did you know that the process of making a hat requires even more than weaving? Before weaving can even begin, a certain part of a certain plant has to be found, harvested, and processed, and after weaving is finished a...
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A hat with 20 rows of weave per inch is finer by far than the vast majority of Panama hats most people ever see. A hat with 25 rows of weave per inch is an impressive hat (even to me, after all these years and thousands of Montecristi hats). A hat with 30 rows...
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