Panama Hat in Bleached

The Notting Hill is Christys' classic Panama — a Grade 4 weave hat that follows the full arc of traditional production from its origins in the highlands of Ecuador to the hands of craftspeople in Oxfordshire, England. It is made properly, in the way Panama hats have always been made, and it shows.

Each hat begins as a rough cone of hand-woven toquilla straw, shaped by a weaver in Ecuador using the traditional techniques that have defined the finest South American hats for centuries. The Grade 4 weave produces a straw of real texture and presence — finer than an everyday holiday hat, honest in its construction and entirely hand-made from the first row of straw to the last.

The hood arrives in Christys' factory in Oxfordshire, where it is soaked, stretched and blocked by hand over a wooden form — the same process used since the earliest days of English hat-making. Blocking sets the crown geometry and the brim line precisely, giving the Notting Hill its clean, composed silhouette. It is then finished with a band and bow, trimmed and inspected before leaving the factory.

The bleached finish renders the toquilla straw at its palest and most refined — a crisp, cool white that reads as considered rather than casual, and that sits with equal ease beside a linen suit at the races or a cotton shirt on a warm evening abroad. It is the purist's choice in a Panama and the one that makes the weave most visible.