Bolivian traditional bombin hats – charming bowlers the local women balance right on the tops of their heads – are accessories with a very unusual history. In most cases, the traditional clothing develops along with the society where it’s used or is adopted from colonizers, new settlers, etc, but this hat was incorporated into Bolivian folk clothing culture sort of accidentally. It’s amazing how a mishap can turn into a fresh and beautiful tradition.
Bolivian traditional attire is very colorful, vivid, and eye-catching. All those wide ruffled skirts, hand-woven shawls, fringes, striped and floral patterns, cheerful accessories, etc. But similar folk clothes we can find in other neighboring countries, like Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and others. So, what Bolivian garment or accessory can be considered the trademark of this particular area? The answer is, definitely the bombin hat. This is a uniquely Bolivian trait in a costume in the whole South America.
Bolivian ladies add a bowler hat called “bombin” to their folk outfit and truly shine in these headdresses, so untypical for South America. But how did this all begin? Where did Bolivian women get the idea to wear a European bowler hat? Moreover, why are their bowlers so small that they don’t sit on the head as they should but balance on the top of the head? History explains everything.
This story began exactly 100 years ago. In the early 1920s, one British company was building a railroad in Bolivia. The railway workers ordered clothes from England, and as there were thousands of them, the shipments of clothing were large. The workers preferred bowler hats because they fit the head well, were convenient, and protected the head perfectly from the local rains and winds. One shipment of bowler hats that came to Bolivia turned out to be not right. The headgear was too small in size and brown instead of black (the fashion of the time dictated that bowlers had to be black), so workers didn’t want to buy the hats from the local entrepreneur Don Domingo Soligno.
Don Domingo Soligno was afraid of bankruptcy, so he had to be super inventive to sell this large consignment. He got it that few British men in Bolivia would buy his goods and turned to women, although not high-class ladies of British descent but the local Bolivian ladies. He offered them small bowler hats as a new fashionable accessory. Some of the bowlers he equipped with cute tassels to make them more feminine. And luckily, Bolivian women took the bait, particularly mestizo females who didn’t consider themselves fully Bolivian and weren’t Europeans as well, they moved to bigger cities from rural areas and were in search of a new lifestyle and new style of clothing, too. This was the perfect target audience for Don Domingo Soligno.
The fresh trend of wearing a felt bowler hat not only remained in Bolivian clothing culture for years but survived to this day. And the local women still wear smallish bombin hats that sit on the crown of the head, which means that in the 1920s, the bowlers sold to Bolivian mestizo ladies also were too small for them. This feature of a bombin was preserved throughout the decades.
Modern Bolivian bombin hats can be made in any color, not just black and brown, like European bowlers. They can be green, violet, purple, beige, blue, etc. And we often see various decorations on bombins – bows, ribbons, tassels, flowers, brooches, and so on. They are usually small and not very prominent, just a touch to a classic strict and reserved bowler hat.
As bombin hats sit high on the head and with no straps under the chin or something, it seems like this headdress will fall down after any careless movement of the wearer, but it doesn’t. Bolivian women say that it’s like walking in high heels – you need some skill and experience but get used to it quickly.
