Ecuadorian hats are light-colored, lightweight, and breathable, and often worn as accessories to summer-weight suits, such as those made of linen or silk.

Beginning around the turn of the 20th century, these hats became popular as tropical and seaside accessories owing to their ease of wear and breathability.

[citation needed] The art of weaving the traditional Ecuadorian toquilla hat was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists on 5 December 2012.

[3] Beginning in the early to mid 1600s, hat weaving evolved as a cottage industry along the Ecuadorian coast as well as in small towns throughout the Andean mountain range.

Straw hats woven in Ecuador, like many other 19th- and early 20th-century South American goods, were shipped first to the Isthmus of Panama before sailing for their destinations in Asia, the rest of the Americas and Europe, subsequently acquiring a name that reflected their point of international sale—"Panama hats"—rather than their place of domestic origin.

Although the Panama hat continues to provide a livelihood for thousands of Ecuadorians, fewer than a dozen weavers capable of making the finest "Montecristi superfinos" remain.

Ecuadorian companies like K. Dorfzaun and Andes Munay have specialized in exporting genuine Panama hats and supplying designer and retail brands with high quality accessories made by hand.

A toquilla straw hat is exceptional because of its tight weave, delicate construction, and lengthy manufacturing process (Henderson 1).

These hats were commonplace in tropical and coastal settings around the turn of the century because of their lightweight design and ability to keep the wearer cool.

[11] As they retained their whiteness, were washable, and could be folded and carried about without damage, Tamsui hats replaced the rather costlier Panama in East Asia in the early 20th century.

Once the hat is sold to a buyer it then would pass through more people who would "finish the brim, shape it, remove imperfections, bleach the straw, and add interior and exterior brands.

[citation needed] Soon after at the 1855 World's Fair in Paris, Panama hats were featured for the first time on a global scale.

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 sporting Ecuadorian-made straw Panama hats.