Combining an artful, centuries-old weaving tradition from their native country of Ecuador with the latest in modern styles in Napa Valley, Elba Mercedes and Fabian Anda have opened Montecristi Panama ...

One small, but effective, detail Yamaguchi likes are the hat hooks, each with a silhouette of the Panama hat. These fill one wall of the store, hats from a variety of Ecuadoran artists, some in colors ...

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 ...

The most notable misconception about the Panama hat is where it comes from. The handwoven straw hats are made in Ecuador, not Panama. They likely became associated with Panama because they passed ...

Panama hats, which are brimmed hats made by knitting the Panama sour plant, are sometimes given grades such as 'Fino' and 'Grade .' Regarding these grades, different sellers use different numbers and ...

Don Rosendo Delgado, now in his late 80s, is one of the great old-time hat dealers. He says Simon Espinal's hats are among the finest — if not the finest — he's ever seen, though he recalls a female ...