The finest and most expensive in the world hats are made in Ecuador, portrays the BBC

Those who do not know the name "Panama hats", but connoisseurs know that the hat world's finest straw comes from Ecuador and mention cities like Montecristi and Cuenca.

However, few know of a small town called Montecristi.

Montecristi is a population of about 1,000 inhabitants located 10 minutes from the Pacific Ocean in the Ecuadorian province of Manabi, where land grows cap straw hat that during the first half of the twentieth century is largely marketed through the weaves Panama Canal, hence the confusion with his name.

"We make the best hats" they say Diogenes and Francisco Pilligua, octogenarian brothers who do not hesitate when rejurar swear and talent born in Pile and passed the hat here and then to Panama Montecristi ".

"They grow but we are abandoned. Hence the name of Montecristi Panama or on hats. But we do hats. We barefoot rasgaditos".

The streets are unpaved and for cell signal they have to move to the city center and approach the door of the church.

Noting the village from the road that runs along the Pacific coast, one hardly imagine that a product out of Montecristi can be purchased for thousands of dollars in the international market, but from the hands of its weavers, or tejenderos as they call themselves, born hat imitate silk.

Sitting in his living room asked if Weaver is the best hats in the world.

The sufficiency of who has given many interviews, I replied that all journalists who have interviewed him (and there have been several, from National Geographic to Public Radio in the United States) asked the same.

"It may be the best tejendero of Ecuador and the world, but not of my community. Because here all know knitting, I have simply sacrificed to get where I am," he says with his new shirt of the Ecuadorian soccer team, as yellow as the sun burns on Pile.

Simon began weaving at age 14, imitating the work of their parents they threw away the straw, the straw that tell bad here.

Ten years later he made a decision that would change his life, wove a hat for four months for a gringo hats he bought his father.

"I and showed him the hat. And I liked the Lord. He said nothing, but I paid it. I paid him 400 or $ 500. The next year came and asked me to weave another. And I liked it better than the first. And there just told me to work for him. I asked how many hats you could deliver a year and I told him that, God willing, six ".

But Simon changed the rules because he wanted to "make the finest hat he could."

Six spent four and now just delivered two hats a year. Monthly charges a gringo and when one of his creations is sold receives a bonus that no less than four figures.

"First, in the material I takes me first 15 days, including drying and straw list, cracked as we say. Just to start armadito I delay another half day. And in the template I takes me over two months before dropping into the cup. It is a job to do slowly, quickly, "he adds.

The buyer

In 1987, the American, whose name is Brent Black, read the travel book "The Panama Hat Trail" in which Tom Miller, author believed that the art of weaving fine hats die within 20 years.

"I decided to travel to Montecristi to see these hats before its extinction. It seemed at that time a fun adventure. And it was."

Black went in search of Rosendo Delgado Garay, a vendor mentioned in the book, who eventually showed him one of the famous Super fine.

Hat texture conquered. "I decided that Miller's prediction was not fulfilled, but it is obvious that art is not saved, simply survives, but the mathematics are against."

For the seller numbers do not lie: to keep alive the art, the weavers must receive at least the minimum wage in Ecuador, between 300 and 400 dollars a month.

Weaving between 14 and 16 hats a year (good hats but of lower quality than the creations of Simon) is necessary to charge about $ 310 per hat when in practice they charge about a third of that amount.


In the international market price of a hat, depending quality and finesse, can range from $ 100 to $ 30,000.

"I had traders wh