This post is the beginning of the tale of my newest hat. As you will see, the tale is incomplete and I will come back and add to it as the story unfolds. Until about six months ago, I had two Panama hats (also known as Montecristi’s, for the town in Ecuador where the bodies are sourced). One was nice and one was very nice. The nice one looks like this.
It is the hat on the right, with a black ribbon added, as is on the one on the left.
For reasons not relevant to this story, the very nice one is likely buried in a landfill in a hatbox that my wife assumed was empty.
I have been using the hat pictured above over the last two summers and it has served very well. In terms of quality of weave, it is equal to or better than just about any hat I have seen regularly stocked in New York, with the exception of the very best at Worth and Worth. It was finished in Ecuador, so the block and sweatband are not particularly nice. The ribbon, added afterwards in the U.S. is satisfactory at best. I really, really missed my nice hat and some weeks ago decided to replace it.
Today, I received photos of the hat body that will be turned into my new hat - the body is more or less fresh out of the shipping container from Ecuador.
The hat is now on its way to the person who will finish the hat for me. That means blocking it to the right size and shape, sewing in a leather sweatband and tying and sewing the ribbon. I have not yet decided exactly what shape the hat should take and suggestions are welcome. Unlike felt raw hat cones, Montecristi hat bodies have a set perimeter where the fronds are backwoven into the body to create a neat edge. That means the hat body has limits on the size of crown and width of brim that can be made for any given head size. While a felt body also has limits, because the brim can be cut to size and shape, there is more flexibility.
My plan is for this hat to be more of a dressy city hat than a casual beach hat, but the exact shape will be guided, in consultation with the blocker, by the proportions that hat seems to offer up.
As you can see from the closeup of the weave, this is a very fine quality hat. I also have a good deal of control over the final product. Still, this is nowhere near the limit of what can be done, and I would hesitate to call this a bespoke hat. The hat body was chosen for me at the marketplace by an agent of the importer from the hundreds of bodies available. It was picked to match as closely as possible my quality and size specifications. It was not, however, woven for me. It is also not the finest Ecuador can offer. It is possible to specially commission the weaving of a hat to the exact size you want and to a much finer weave than this. That would be a true bespoke Montecristi. I have never seen a straw that good in person. As rare as hat wearers are, and If all goes well in the making, I suspect that mine is likely to be as fine a Montecristi as I will come across (ss long as I stay away from Ed Hayes).
I hope you enjoy these pictures and I look forward to having more to show you.
