West Panama
If cowboys wore Panama hats, this might be the style. The Western brim dips down front and back, lifts up like wings on the sides.
The first time I wore this style in public I was chased into the parking lot by a bartender at one of my town’s better beach front restaurants. He had seen me going out the door and wanted to know where I got the totally maxin’ hat.
I handed him my business card and told him to go back inside and get his attorney. I figured there was a much better chance his attorney could afford the hat.
This is the same crown block as the Plantation, Aficionado, and Classic Fedora. The brim style is the difference. This brim is shaped on flanges that were found in an old building in Colorado in an attic that had been sealed up for more than a century.
Isn’t that great? After more than a hundred years of being forgotten and useless, seven old Western hat brim flanges from the nineteenth century have purpose again in the twenty-first. I like that.
People sometimes accuse me of trying to set the hat industry back a hundred years. Not really. Just my little part of it.
As for the style, it’s a keeper. The hat in the photos is my personal hat.
It’s definitely a Western hat. The brim defines it. Western. You can probably wear this hat successfully anywhere between Westchester County and West LA, including authentic Western states where people still know a lot about hats. The brim shape is the real deal and the crown looks so darn good someone will probably try to buy it right off your head the first week you wear it.
When I said anywhere between Westchester County and West LA, I meant if you go the short way. If you go east from Westchester County or west from West LA, you’re on your own.
PRICES Why One Panama Hat Costs More than Another
PREMIUM
$550, $650, $750, $900, $1100, $1500
SUPER-PREMIUM
$2000, $2500, $3000, $3500, $5000
RARE TREASURES very limited availability A $25,000 hat? Really? How Fine Are the Finest?
$7500 to $25,000
BRIM
3 1⁄4 to 3 3⁄4 inches
CROWN
4 3⁄8 to 4 3⁄4 inches
SIZES details
21
1⁄2
to 23
1⁄2
inches
(53.5 to 59.5 cm)
SWEATBAND see choices
Standard sweatband for this style is un-dyed fine leather.
RIBBON see choices
Standard ribbon for this style is 1 1⁄16 inch black.
West PanamaOrder Now
Web work by
Pipsqueak Productions, LLC
Text and photos © 1988-2010, B. Brent Black. All rights reserved.
