This article will focus on one very famous and popular summer headdress. Who doesn’t know what hat is Panama? Of course, she is known to all. In its primary form, the panama is woven from graceful straws and bounded along the lower edge by elastic straw fields.
It would seem that what was so unusual about her that turned her into the subject of study in this article?
Lexical paradox
This question is simple. Try to ask at least your friends: “In what country is the national headdress called Panama?” What do you think the majority of respondents will answer? They will say without hesitation: "In Panama!"
And, of course, relying on the similarity of the name of the hat and the Central American country, they are mistaken. After all, human inconsistency in inventing names is well known. In particular, this hat, created in one country, is named after another.
Ecuador - the real homeland of Panama
To be precise, the homeland of the "Ecuadorian hat" is the city of Cuenca, the cultural capital of Ecuador. Representatives of creative professions prefer to settle here. And it is in the district of this city that the endemic Ecuadorian palm tree - carludovica palmata - a source of raw materials for the manufacture of Panama grows in large quantities. Grateful residents of this country call it "national treasure."
In the XVII century, the inhabitants of Cuenca for the first time decided to use the dried leaves of the mentioned palm tree (toquilles) cut into straws for weaving light, durable and "breathing" hats. Local businessmen, realizing the benefits, organized the mass production of these wonderful hats in the 19th century.
By the beginning of the 18th century, almost every inhabitant of Ecuador had a new and very comfortable national headdress - Panama.
In which country does this not happen? Popular crafts grew into a thriving segment of light industry, and its products, filling the domestic market, began to be exported.
According to established tradition, so far only Ecuadorian hats are woven. This is a very painstaking work. The craftswoman sometimes takes several months to make a particularly elegant expensive panama.
Fashion Paradoxes
During the emergence in the world of panama fashion (and this was in the first decades of the 20th century) between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the famous canal was just being built, passing through the territory of Panama - a small state located on the isthmus between the continents of South America and North America.
By this time, Ecuador had already established thousands of panam production and was looking for new markets for their sales. This profitable business at the beginning of the last century has reached a new level. At that time, Panama was at the hearing of the whole world (in connection with the construction). And Ecuadorian hats poured there, so that then on merchant ships bales with sombrero de Panamá (as it was called at that time) were delivered to different countries.
In addition, this product was a bestseller: people who built the Panama Canal, with a length of 81.6 km and a width of 150 m, however, like the people who celebrated its opening, for the most part wore panama on their heads. Who knows, maybe this also contributed to the transfer of the name of the majestic structure to the headgear that has become very popular.
The amazing thing is fashion. After all, if you follow the logic of things, then (sorry for the tautology) is not in Panama that the national headdress is Panama. (In which country is it a national treasure, we have already mentioned.) But in order not to be unfounded, we will try to prove that it is certainly not in Panama.
Panama is not the birthplace of panama
It is very simple to prove that the population of this small state could not even theoretically create this remarkable national headdress - Panama.
In which country previously Panama was only one of the provinces? Answer: in Colombia. The reason for the spontaneous separation of part of the country into a sovereign state was purely external in nature. US capitalists financing the canal construction project calculated that it would be cheaper for them under such conditions. Political pressure was put on Colombia, and … Panama appeared.
Therefore, in the correct answer to the question "What national headdress is Panama?" the name of the country should not be present - Panama.
To summarize the proof of the obvious: at the beginning of the 20th century, the word “national” was not even logically applicable to Panama, a state created by bureaucratic-compulsory, having a daughter of a common Colombian origin and history
About Panama Production
They were created in the last century every year by several million. Gradually, a national headdress - Panama - began to be characterized by more blurred generic features. In what country they just made it!
Soon, taking the Ecuadorian style of the headdress as a basis, the elastic straws began to be replaced with a dense fabric. For dozens of years of production, fashion designers have shown their imagination. Thanks to them, Panama was no longer a definite type, but an impressive assortment of summer hats. Whether they are made for resort holidays from dense fabric with narrow fields or for military service - with wider fields.
However, true connoisseurs among this variety will prefer authentic panama woven from palm leaves, which are produced exclusively in Ecuador. Unfortunately, only a few enterprises continue this traditional and distinctive craft. One of them is the factory Homero Ortega (Cuenca).
