Cuba makes guayabera shirt its official garment
By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press Writer
HAVANA -- When Fidel Castro suddenly decided to shed his trademark olive
green military fatigues and don street clothes in public for the first
time in 35 years, a white guayabera shirt over blue slacks is what he
put on.
A resolution from the Foreign Relations Ministry published into law
Wednesday makes the guayabera Cuba's official formal dress garment and
mandates that government officials wear them at state functions. That's
welcome news in a country known for its steamy summer weather.
The law confirms the decades-old reputation of the cool, roomy cotton or
linen shirts - with four large pockets and pleats down the front,
traditionally worn untucked - as the island's most quintessential
fashion choice.
"The guayabera has been a part of the history of our country for a long
time and constitutes one of the most authentic and legitimate
expressions of Cubanism," the resolution said.
According to the law, male officials are to wear white, long-sleeved
guayaberas at state events; women can vary color and style.
Nearly all Cuban officials already shun suits and sport jackets in the
tropical heat, so the law isn't likely to change much.
The guayabera also is a fashion fixture in Mexico, parts of Florida and
even as far away as the Philippines. It is said to have originated in
this country, though no one is sure exactly where or when.
Cuban legend has it the shirt was born in the early 1700s in the central
province of Sancti Spiritus, on the banks of the Yayabo River, where
families of recent Spanish immigrants fashioned light work sheets out of
linen and equipped them with pockets where they could stuff enough
cigars to get them through long days in the fields.
The local river may have inspired the garment's name, though some insist
the shirt was designed to fill its many pockets with guava fruit - and
that the name comes from that.
The resolution offered no definitive answer as to the shirts' origin,
but gave the tradition a political and socio-economic spin: Guayaberas
"have been worn with pride and satisfaction" by Cubans of all
backgrounds, it said, "evolving from their rural roots to reach various
sectors of the urban population."
In Castro's case, his wardrobe shift came during a 1994 summit in
Colombia, and only then at the urging of his friend, Nobel Prize-winning
author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
After a health crisis forced him to cede Cuba's presidency to his
younger brother Raul in July 2006, Fidel Castro took to wearing
1970s-style track suits, short-sleeve dress shirts and other attire -
though he now sometimes appears in fatigues devoid of any rank or insignia.
Raul Castro dons guayaberas for many public occasions, including
sessions of parliament and meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries.
In 2007, Cuba opened a guayabera museum in the city of Sancti Spiritus,
capital of the province of the same name, and the shirt has symbolic
value predating the revolution that swept the Castro brothers and their
bearded band of rebels to power on New Year's Day 1959.
Islanders who battled the Spanish for independence wore guayaberas as a
symbol of resistance, and revolutionary leader Narciso Lopez was wearing
one when he raised the Cuban flag for the first time in May 1850.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/06/1860581/cuba-makes-guayabera-shirt-its.html
No comments:
Post a Comment