"btw, Fedora's > panama hats"
depends on the hat. I would like an adventurebilt Indy fedora because all I see around here are those clubhopper Sinatra short brim fedoras. However that is $400 and in southern california it would be necessary 3 months out of the year and probably too hat for 4 months out of the year.
This panama hat is a genuine handwoven cuenca fino Optimo that I had woven a little wider and taller than standard. now that i'm working a day job with a tie i finally dress up to justify wearing a $150 hat and I will do so this summer. Someday I will go to Europe in my panama hat, and red soled saddle shoes, and a white seersucker suit (probably hafta get that custom tailored to have a madras lining because I will NOT have a polyester lining in a seersucker suit, wrinkles are the whole damn POINT of a seersucker suit) and I will stroll through elegant gardens stocked with koi ponds, looking quite the swell. Persons of the European persuasion will stop and point and murmur as I strut by. Finally one of them will approach me--timidly at first, and then with greater boldness. "Excuse me sir" he will say, " this garden is closed to the public." Such are the adventures possible to a man with a panama hat.