El Museo del Sombrero de Paja Toquilla (Panama Hat Museum) is a cross between an informative series of displays and a large hat shop. The store (for it’s hard to call a place where everything is for sale a genuine museum) is located in the home of the Paredes Roldán family, who also own the location. Panama hats, in various stages of construction, line the long entry way. There are also colorful murals and glassed-in displays of how the hats are produced. In the store’s main room, hats are everywhere: stacked several feet high along the walls, displayed on tables or in cabinets and throwing their shadows from stacks on the roof. Walk around and the staff will come over to show you how hats are pressed into forms on one of the workshop’s giant green machines or how the hats are then finished at a sewing table.

Keep in mind that, if you choose to make a purchase at El Museo del Sombrero, you’ll probably end up paying more than you would in a local market place. Should you decide later on that you liked the hats you saw there, El Museo ships products internationally.

Museum, Shopping

By Rachael Hanley

A sometime newspaper journalist with a heavy side of wanderlust, Rachael moved to Quito in November to work on the V!VA staff. She is currently...

Created: 09 Mar 2009

Updated: 09 Mar 2009

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