Author’s father and grandfather sporting Panama Hats in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, circa 1920. Several years ago, a relative in Ecuador gave me a beautiful, white, straw hat (below). The hat is so finely and delicately hand woven that it can be rolled up tightly enough that it can almost pass through a wedding ring. Some say it can even hold water, although I have never put mine through that test. Already in 1869, an article in Scientific American Magazine described such hats, made in Ecuador, as being distinguishable “from all others by consisting only of a single piece, and by their lightness a…