On the 1st of January 1880 the construction of the Panama Canal started. It would connect the Atlantic Ocean via the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The engineer of the project was the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps. To cut a long story short, the canal was completed by the USA in 1887.
Here’s an interesting detail: Ecuadorians, who came to build the Canal, wore straw hats to protect themselves from the sun. Little did they know, those funny hats would become a real fashion phenomenon!
The #Parisians, who have always been the icon of impeccable style, wore those exotic hats with pleasure.
The Ecuadoran hat would be worn by such prominent personalities as Winston Churchill, Theodor Roosevelt, Paul Newman…
In spite of the hat’s Ecuadorian origins, people started to call it «#Panama»: what an injustice!
Few people know that in the early XXth century, Panama was also a nickname for #Paris.
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