For a top-of-the-line Panama hat, Biltmore Hats offers its Classic Panama Fedora. The high weave count and quality of the weave itself account for the eyebrow-raising price tag, but I daresay you'll think it's worth every penny once that baby's on your head. Biltmore's Ventilated Panama, with its pinch front and center crease, is also certainly worthy of your consideration. It's a comfortable hot weather hat, with its open mesh crown, and has a dimensional brim to boot! The Canadian hatter really surpassed itself when creating The Excello Leisure, an elegant and lightweight Gambler-shaped Panama hat which boasts a stand-out band, along with The Excello Fedora, trim and neat with its 2 1/4 inch snap brim. There's also a very fine center dent shantung panama fedora offered by Dobbs called The Center Dent--seriously, what else?--which is available for a delightfully affordable outlay of cash.

Not every panama hat is a fedora, of course: there are panama pork pie hats from Borsalino and safaris from Scala, one of my all-time favorites being The Copacabana, with its two-tone hat band and cool, vented crown. There are even outbacks in panama straw as well (we're talking The Saratoga here). Another Scala panama hat style is evidenced by The Gambler with its great, broad brim (for sun protection) and Weatherall coating (in case of sun shower). This variety of style within each hat genre is, by the way, the source of our MensHats.com tagline: A Hat For Every Head. The brilliant slogan also comes from the fact that I'm kinda like the Shakespeare of hat copy - but lots better looking, naturally, in my dress Dobbs panama shantung homburg.