ECUADOR: Panama hat manufacturers concerned about cheap Chinese copies

Despite their name, Panama hats originated in Ecuador and remain its most famous export. However, there are now growing fears that the Panama hat market is under threat as traditional skills die out and cheap Chinese copies flood the market. Ecuadorians have mostly swallowed their chagrin and accepted that their most famous export will for ever more be known as the "Panama hat". The Ecuadorian hats used to be shipped east from Panama and were worn by labourers hewing out the canal across the isthmus there, opened in 1914. Since then, they have been misleadingly known as Panama hats. But these days there many Ecuadorians fear they will lose all contact with their beloved white straw hats altogether. Cheap Chinese copies are devouring the Panama Hat market - and the local manufacturers are finding the prices hard to beat. "We have hats from approximately five dollars up to 400, 500 dollars. Depending on the quality, the time taken to make the hat, the preparation time, and of course the accessories that you can put on the hat," owner of Panama Hat manufacturer Homero Ortega And Hijos, Alicia Ortega said. That sounds like a good price range. But the real handmade Panama Hat woven by women here in the mountain city of Cuenca - the homeland of the Panama Hat - go for around 25 to 50 dollars and can fetch more than three times that price in the West. The more expensive hats can take some four months to weave. But the nimble-fingered women still here weaving them say the next generation is just not interested. "More and more we are forgetting the teachings of how to weave the hat, because many people leave to work in the city and so they are no longer here working in their houses," one Chola woman said. Panama hats are made out of palm trees fibre. In their finest form they are renowned for being so finely woven that their fabric looked as smooth as a cotton sheet. These kings of the Panama Hats are known as "superfinos" - the story goes you can fill them with water and not a drop will pass through. Rolled up, a superfino should pass through a wedding ring. The best examples can fetch thousands of dollars. But now there are hardly any people left who know how to make the superfinos. So without outstanding quality to set themselves apart, the manufacturers have turned to diversification: Panama Hat show rooms are now more often than not filled with brightly coloured ladies' hats and handbags. Still, many tourists come to the stores with only one goal in mind - walking away with a hat. "I am very proud of my Panama hat, I have come all the way to Cuenca to buy a Panama hat, and I think it is absolutely great," British tourist, Robert Creighton, said. Maintaining the hats' luxury market for high-society Westerners attending horse races, summer fetes and on Tuscan holidays is also high on the agenda. Rudi Bigus works for German countrywear brand Stetson. He says his customers will buy the cheaper Chinese hats but he comes to Cuenca to buy for his luxury range. "We export hats from Cuenca to all of Europe, distribute them in Europe and we buy the ready made hats," Bigus said. But with hat-wearing in general falling out of fashion, the workshops say they now produce as little as 20 percent of what they did 15 to 20 years ago. And with the superfino know-how on the decline making up the difference by increasing quality is going to be a challenge.

ITN Source | February 25, 2007

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