Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Beyond the utilitarian aspect and fashion itself; thanks to their history, significance and high quality, Peruvian hats are items of huge cultural and artistic value. Do not doubt, you will always look good wearing one.

By: Gonzalo Carrillo







There are people who regard the hat as a garment to protect you from the sun. These are the same people who think that pajamas are only for sleeping. In reality, the hat, as in any other personal garment, is a symbol, an object with a social meaning, a way of expressing something. And, in addition, it protects you from the sun.

Among us, the hat has played a key role for some social groups in certain areas.  For example, nobody could imagine José Antonio (the character in Chabuca Granda’s famous song), on his white horse without his jipijapa hat, his scarf and his white linen poncho. By the way, this hat is a combination of illusory gleams which hides one appearance inside another, like those Russian dolls. To start with, the jipijapa hat which is typically worn by our chalanes is not from Peru. Better known as Panama hat, this is not originally from Panama either, but from Ecuador. That’s right, Jipijapa is located in Ecuador. However, the greater producer of these hats is Cuenca, yet the highest quality comes from Montecristi.

During the last century, landowners along the coast adopted the jipijapa hat as an essential garment. But, since it was difficult to bring them from Panama (where almost all the production from Ecuador was sent to); soon our craftsmen saw the opportunity (the market, as the liberals would say) and started to weave hats. This story will go on further.

Taking a look at the other end of Peru, we find that in the southern provinces those who have made an exquisite garment of the hat are mainly the popular classes. In the Andes, the hat is also a way of expressing certain meanings, but its use has been more spread among common people than in higher social classes. Its wide variety and richness is huge, so much that an anthropologic research could be carried out in this respect.

But let’s take our hats off, and start walking along the path of the Peruvian hat bareheaded.

Passing the hat along

The hat is an entirely European item. Even though long time ago it existed in a rudimentary way and for utilitarian purposes indeed, the hat that we know today was born in the 14th century. It soon became popular throughout Europe, though the shapes varied from country to country, and from one social class to another.

Renaissance clothing found in the hat its more magnificent complement; the favorite materials were velvet and woolen cloth, decorated with feathers, ribbons and precious gems. Of course, this was common within the aristocracy, since common people continued wearing hoods, though later adopted a hat of a round shape.

When the use of the wig was imposed in the 17th century, the hat was made much wider and was decorated with lace and feathers, in a similar way for gentlemen and ladies. In time, materials were diversified and hats made of wool, fur, filter, leather, straw, etc., were introduced.

It was the Spaniards who brought the hat to America. Though apparently in Peru and Ecuador the locals had already been weaving straw to make garments and other objects of daily use, nothing has been found with the shape of a hat. The population, including the aristocrats, protected themselves with blankets and woolen caps, and decorated their heads with feathered hats. Doctor Jiménez Borja, expert on these subjects and owner of a renowned collection of hats, when trying to explain the origin of the word Puruchuco, suggested that this term could mean “feathered hat” and he made reference to the historian Cieza de León, who describes in his chronicles the decorations of young native people who participated in the ceremony of puberty: “… and they would wear a feathered biretta, sewn like a tiara, which they called Puruchuco…”. In any case, the hat arrived with Spaniards to stay.

More hats than heads

Nowadays our craftsmen produce very fine hats, of high quality and using traditional techniques. Let’s start in the north. The province of Celendín, in the Department of Cajamarca, is famous for its chocolate and its fantastic painted “shawl” straw hats.  In 1944, Celendín reached the amazing record of more than 100,000 hand-made hats, so fine that when rolled up, they were able to pass through a ring without breaking. The hats were so many, that a popular saying was:  “In Celendín there are more hats than heads”.

“Shawl” straw is brought from the Department of San Martín and its weaving is generally a woman’s work. Hats are sold on Sundays in the fair at Plaza de la Alameda. The “James Bond” style is the prevailing one among men, even though the cowboy, the Borsalino and the Cuban styles are also in high demand. Women prefer the bin style and the sombreras which require special work and are made of straw dyed with aniline in different colors, thus obtaining varied and colorful decorations.

Not too far from Cajamarca, another town is disputing the supremacy with Celendín: the town of Catacaos, which is located in the Department of Piura. If the people of Celendín are proud of the fact that their hats can pass through a ring, the people of Catacaos state that theirs can be easily placed inside the upper pocket of the coat as if they were a handkerchief.

Their hats are part of the Peruvian art craft tradition. A chronicle written by Leguía and Martínez (1914) states: “Nothing is known about the origin of the industry of the Catacaos hats. It was a priest who taught the Indians during colonial times. It could be said that the entire population of Catacaos, which is about 50,000 inhabitants including the people who live in the fields, is dedicated to this industry. Men, women, children and elderly people, when they are not busy in the agriculture, they are weaving hats everywhere”.

According to its shape, there are two kinds of hats: round (cylindrical, as some properly call it) and square. The first has the height of the top greater than the latitude of the brim; the second has both measures exactly the same. Catacaos craftsmen still use the traditional handmade technology, but they are modernizing their hats and putting them “into fashion”. Will this be good or bad?

And to finish with the north, let’s take a look at the “City of the Hats”. We are referring to Rioja, also known as “a noble and welcoming city”, which is located in the Department of San Martín, in the Peruvian rainforest. This is where the “shawl” straw used in Celendín comes from.  However, not only do Riojans provide the raw material, they also weave exquisite hats, though it seems that as time goes by, they are less dedicated to this noble work of crowning the heads of the world.

It was not always like that. There was a time when the Department of San Martin had an important production of hats. Since the middle of the last century, the export of hats made of bombonaje or “shawl” straw, allowed the Department of San Martin to experience an economic boom, with the opening of several local businesses. That’s where its nickname came from.

A woman in a hat

Women in the south are the ones who give more importance to the hat. And they wear them precisely to protect themselves from the sun, since in some cases these are much smaller than the head and are worn charmingly fastened at an angle.

Some years ago Peru, and the world, rediscovered with amazement a valley which had remained stopped in time, with its customs, crafts and churches:  the Colca Valley in Arequipa. Also known as “Valle del Fuego” (Valley of the Fire) or “Valle del Cóndor” (Valley of the Condor), the Colca remained half isolated from the rest of the country for several centuries, as it lost its strategic importance and was of difficult access.

Well, some centuries later, we all contemplate, astonished, the beauty of its churches, the magic of its landscapes, its unbelievable sown fields, but also its spectacular clothing. And among them, the women’s hat. What struck us most about the women’s garments in the valley, especially from Chivay and Cabanaconde, is their highly detailed embroidery.

In Chivay, the embroidered skirts are spectacular, though the shirts, bodices and jackets are also embroidered. And undoubtedly, the hats. After the hat is manufactured, it is amazingly transformed, where an expert, with only one glance, is able to identify if the owner is from Chivay or Cabanaconde, if she is single or married, among other details.

Maybe those from Cabanaconde are the most exquisite. The motives of the embroideries are flowers, birds and dancers, and the work is done directly on the hat without the use of any pattern or model. What is embroidered by each craftsman is in his mind:  that is his only source of inspiration.
Not too far, in Puno, the hat also reigns on the women’s head. They are made of filter, cloth, flannel or wool; they are for daily use, for the carnival, or for a party, they are from Lampa, Huancané, Azángaro, Juliaca; there are hats everywhere.

Very peculiar is the use of the bowler hat, better known in Europe as derby hat. It is the same that Charles Chaplin used. For English visitors, it is the showy garment in Puno, because it is not currently worn, and due to the fact that when it was, it was exclusively worn by men. Experts say that this kind of hat was imposed in the taste of the aymara women during the first years of the 20th century.  It is also said that popularization of these hats started due to a wrong remittance of bowler hats for men to La Paz. The reseller, who didn’t want to have losses, managed to sweet-talk the Puno women, with the promise that their use guaranteed fertility.

In any case, the famous Borsalino House in Italy, whose hats were known as coronas de fieltro (filter crowns), sold such a quantity in La Paz that, in the Museo del Sombrero (Hat Museum) of the Alessandria University, in the Italian region of Piemonte, the chola hat, of dark brown color, occupies a place of honor. Borsalino went out of business, but presently many factories from La Paz dispute the production and selling of hats with “Borsalino quality”.

What is true is that, along these years, this hat has suffered an evolution in respect to its manufacturing and details, in order to arrive to its present elegant and feminine shape. Until some decades ago in Ichu (Puno), women wore this hat with more similarity to the original English hat for men.