Early one morning in June, a Panama hat weaver named Simon Espinal sat down to work at a wooden table in his house in Pile, an obscure village hidden in the hills near Montecristi, in Ecuador's steamy ...

We visit one of the last — and best — practitioners of this vanishing art. Like his predecessors, he lives in Ecuador, not Panama. Early one morning in June, a Panama hat weaver named Simon Espinal ...