Hi folks,
I am looking in Taipei for a Panama hat. I found a very nice hand made one from Ecuador in Eslite store in City Hall but it is 5800NTD… I was mode looking for the 300NTD china made 
Any idea where I can find a more affordable one ?
Thanks
If you buy a cheap made one, it will fall apart within 3 months or so. When we were in Ecuador, we purchased two 20-dollar ones, a child’s one, and a $200US one. Apart from the $200one, the stitching in the other ones has fallen apart. It’s one purchase that you should at least spend $200 on.
Taiwan once made most of the worlds Panama hats when under Japanese rule, it’s a pity they are hard to find here now.
I find the ones at Eslite rather poor quality. If you are looking for some cheap ones, most night markets have some.
If you ever goto Yuanli in Miaoli, there are many stores and shops that sell handcrafted panama hats
http://www.lohastw.com/blog/?p=3901
http://www.backpackers.com.tw/forum/showthread.php?t=866562
otherwise you can buy one online…
http://global.rakuten.com/zh-tw/category/bags/hats/for_men/straw_hats/
Very nice reply. Thanks !
Yep Yuanli was the centre of a massive Panama hat industry once, but there are different types of Panama hat.
One type uses pandanus leaves from a cactus looking tree you can find on the shorelines here. In Yuanli they mainly seem to make them from a type of grass reed. Anyway…they operate like home factories where they make it by piece work and sell to the cooperative centre there. They are not particularly cheap.
Does anyone have any first-hand experiences buying a hat in Yuanli? Any suggestions for what to buy or what to avoid? And, assuming I don’t want to buy the cheapest or most expensive ones, what is a fair price for a hat that looks nice and will last a while?
We went to Yuanli today and bought a hat there. The colors are darker than Panama hats, and they don’t seem to be interested in dyeing them white. I just bought a cheap one (NT$900), but they have some with better weaving for closer to NT$3,000–and some are over NT$10,000. They look fine for semi-casual or casual wear, but I don’t know if I’d be wearing this with a suit or anything.
Thanks to hansioux for the links. Those were the two places we went.
Just out of curiosity, are the hats from Yuanli the ones referred to as Tamsui hats?
[quote=“SlowRain”]
[/quote]
I’ve read that originally the hat were made in Ecuador, but they were brought to Panama and sold there, and then they’ve became known as Panama hats. It’s the same thing with Yuanli’s hats which were known as Dajia (大甲) hats. Tamsui hats were made with leaves of Tahitian screwpine (Pandanus tectorius), and Yuanli hats were made with Cyperus malaccensis, a papyrus like grass. That’s the only difference between the two.
Thanks for that. It’s sad to see the industry dying like this. On our way home, we stopped in Dajia because one of the hat-store owners in Yuanli said there was a hat store near the temple there that sold imported white hats that I may be more interested in for formal wear. I was excited, thinking they may be Panama hats. They weren’t. They were cheap paper or polyester factory-made ones. However, there is one store near the Dajia temple that sells Yuanli/Dajia hats also–and they were really nice! About NT$2,800.
The hat I bought is just an experiment to see how much use I get out of one. It’s not very finely woven, but decent enough. Unfortunately, the edge of the brim on this one is sewn and not woven back like on the more expensive ones. If I get a fair amount of use out of it, I’ll go there again and get a better one. They are nice.
[quote=“SlowRain”]Thanks for that. It’s sad to see the industry dying like this. On our way home, we stopped in Dajia because one of the hat-store owners in Yuanli said there was a hat store near the temple there that sold imported white hats that I may be more interested in for formal wear. I was excited, thinking they may be Panama hats. They weren’t. They were cheap paper or polyester factory-made ones. However, there is one store near the Dajia temple that sells Yuanli/Dajia hats also–and they were really nice! About NT$2,800.
The hat I bought is just an experiment to see how much use I get out of one. It’s not very finely woven, but decent enough. Unfortunately, the edge of the brim on this one is sewn and not woven back like on the more expensive ones. If I get a fair amount of use out of it, I’ll go there again and get a better one. They are nice.[/quote]
Well… a baseball game in Taiwan nearly 100 years ago used to look like this:
catalog.digitalarchives.tw/item/00/32/a9/bf.html
I guess if the retro fashion thing is big in Taiwan, it could revive the industry.
Right now, rap/hip-hop seems to be setting fashion trends the world over. There is the hipster movement (which, I must admit, supports hand-made, natural products), and I’m starting to see more hats being shown on the models in department stores. Unfortunately, they’re cheap, factory-made ones. I think people right now would much rather have several cheap hats to mix and match than just have one or two good ones as staples–or, let’s face it, go hatless.
Thanks for all this research you’ve done. My hat’s off to you. Do you–or anyone else, for that matter–happen to have a hand-made, natural-fibre hat?
I’ve always wanted one, but have been told time and time again that my ridiculously fat head makes 'em fine hand-crafted hats look bad.
Bollocks! Just get a bigger hat. 
May I ask the address or where this store is located?
I’m looking for a decent quality hat, ~3000nt (may be willing to go 5000). Or any other recommended stores in Dajia/Yuanli/Miaoli would work, thanks!
Greatly appreciated.
I just went to the two places mentioned in the links further above. They’re both near the train station and easy to find. If you have a mobile internet connection or download the pictures, I’m sure the locals could point you in the right direction. It’s a very small place. There’s also a place near the temple in Dajia, but I can’t remember the exact location now. If you were to walk down those shopping streets around the temple, you’d find it. It was a somewhat rundown, poorly lit place, with a wall of hats. They only had the NT$3,000 ones, though.
Check out DJ’s hats in Dajia
What are the prices and styles like?