The Straw Edit: Palm

Author: Sarah Orrico

all things palm leaf straw

Our palm straw hats are braided and sewn in Mexico with gorgeous palm leaf. When sewn they create a layered pattern, which makes the straw super strong.

Palm straw is incredibly durable because of the way its woven, thus being a great outdoor adventure hat. One of the best parts of wearing palm straw is that it does super well with water, so if you're rocking your palm hat and you get dunked underwater or sprayed with the hose, you and your beloved hat will be perfectly misted and not have to worry about damage.

From our design team: The process is actually similar process to panama-harvesting, clean it, cook it (boil it to remove impurities), hang it dry it and then start to weave it. The weaving process is not similar to panama. Panamas are woven into the raw body where palm are actually braided into strips and then sewn together into a body. Difference between panama weave is the strength but in this case the strength is the braid, they sew braid into a body. The harvesting process is a social, healing community in Mexico. It's all made in little mountain towns that don’t have a lot of other industry. It’s a lot of women who are are harvesting and braiding.The material is very natural, organic, durable.They can be easily reshaped just by getting them wet. No steam is required. How you sew the braid is you can change the width of braid to change strength. UPF 50Palm straw hats are definitely heavy sitting on your head compared to toquilla or hemp straw, but they are sturdy and can easily be reshaped with water. My first straw hat was our toquilla straw Welfleet - absolutely love it, toquilla is easy because of its light-weight quality. However, since I tried a few of our palm straws last summer I can't get enough - they've easily become my go-to summer styles. For me, the texture feels so natural and I love how the woven layers look. From a utility standpoint I really enjoy not having to put my hand on my hat to keep it from blowing when a gust of wind comes through. Palm straw is a lot of hat!