Guambiana

[Donde]

A tourist snapshot of a guambiana woman in Silvia, Colombia

 

[Granddad]

Nice shot!

...and on a totally irrelevant note to photography, I've often wondered how bowler hats became an item of traditional dress for some Andean women. As "Our man in Colombia" do you have any insight into this burning question?

 

[Donde]

I do Grandad. I've read that the Indians of Peru completely fell in love with the bowler derbies worn by the Scottish railroad workers who built the railroad (first in South America) in Peru in the eighteen hundreds,. My source for this is Tom Feiling's Short Walks From Bogotá. The style spread to other Indian communities.

 

[Granddad]

That makes sense! Many thanks. I have quite a collection of hats so hat stories interest me more than most.