A strawhat is a brimmed hat that is woven out of straw or straw-like materials from different plants or synthetics. The hat is designed to protect the head from the sun and against heatstroke, but straw hats are also used in fashion as a decorative element or a uniform.
Materials
Commonly used fibers are:
Wheat straw:,
Rye straw: used for the traditional bryl straw hats popular among the peasants of Belarus, southwestern Russia and Ukraine.
Toquilla straw: flexible and durable fiber, which is often made into hats in Ecuador, but popularly known as Panama hats.
Visca straw: an artificial straw made by spinning viscose in a flat filament capable of being braided, woven, or knitted and used especially for women's hats,
Rush straw: a thick, stiff straw, used to manufacture inexpensive casual sun hats, made from rush grass, from the bulrushtypes sedge grass
Manufacture
There are several styles of straw hats, but all of them are woven using some form of plant fibre. Many of these hats are formed in a similar way to felt hats; they are softened by steam or by submersion in hot water, and then formed by hand or over a hat block. Finer and more expensive straw hats have a tighter and more consistent weave. Since it takes much more time to weave a larger hat than a smaller one, larger hats are more expensive.
History
Straw hats have been worn in Europe and Asia since after the Middle Ages during the summer months, and have changed little between the medieval times and today. Many are to be seen in the famous calendar miniatures of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, worn by all classes, but mostly by men. The mokorotlo, a local design of a straw hat, is the national symbol of the Basotho and Lesotho peoples, and of the nation of Lesotho. It is also displayed on the license plates of that country. President Theodore Roosevelt helped popularize the straw Panama hat during his visit to the Panama Canal. Roosevelt used his natural ability to drum up publicity by posing for a series of photos at the Panama Canal construction site in 1906. Photos of his visit showed a strong, rugged leader dressed crisply in light-colored suits and stylish straw fedoras.
Panama hat — a fine and expensive hat made in Ecuador.
Salakot — a traditional conical or pointed rounded hat made usually made from rattan from the Philippines. It can also be made from gourds, tortoiseshell, or other fibers and weaving materials.
Gallery
Arts
Artwork produced during the Middle Ages shows, among the more fashionably dressed, possibly the most spectacular straw hats ever seen on men in the West, notably those worn in the Arnolfini Portrait of 1434 by Jan van Eyck and by Saint George in a painting by Pisanello of around the same date. In the middle of the 18th century, it was fashionable for rich ladies to dress as country girls with a low crowned and wide brimmed straw hat to complete the look.
