I've often wondered where people get their "traditional" clothes from so Corte Inglés was a bit of a surprise. Maybe all the branches in Provincial Capitals have a "traditional" section. I've asked of course and been variously told that some of the clothes are hired, that there are family heirlooms, that lots are made in family, that there are people who make a living by supplying the clothes and, from time to time, I do see the costumes in shop windows. There used to be a shop in Pinoso, in Plaza Colón, opposite the market that sold fiesta clothes. Down in Murcia, for the Bando de la Huerta celebrations, they move so much "traditional" clothing that you can buy it in the supermarkets.
I've said in the past that the idea of "traditional" dress seems a bit strange to me. (I'm going to give up on the inverted commas now but remember they're there). Who is it who chooses? Who stopped the clock in the 18th or 19th century? Why isn't traditional something from 1945 or 1967 or 2023? And if it were would traditional be what people wear to the office, to a wedding or to do sport?
Probably around 2006 our village, Culebrón, prepared a float for the big parade that is a part of the Pinoso fiesta in August. Culebrón had been promised drains by the PP administration of the time but they were not forthcoming. The float's main feature was an oversized toilet. We were told to try to wear something traditional to accompany the float and that the traditional dress for Culebrón was striped grey trousers or skirt topped off with a white shirt. We did our best.
There's another event in Pinoso which celebrates the liberation of Pinoso from the shackles of Monóvar in 1826. The celebration, called Villazgo, takes place in February. For years it was a great event, nowadays in cash strapped Pinoso it's a pathetic affair held in a car park. I used to buy a newspaper most mornings from a shop called Juanjo and I liked to try and chat to the owner as a way of practising my Spanish. We got talking about Villazgo and Juanjo told me about the typical and traditional form of clothing for men in Pinoso before selling me a sort of smock. Very simple, a big baggy black shirt to be worn with a blue and white neckerchief. He wasn't telling fibs, I know from years and years of experience that it's one of the most common men's outfits for Villazgo. Mine is still unworn. I have never been one for fancy dress and I always think I'd feel like a bit of a fake dressing up as a Spaniard - I was born in Huddersfield after all where cloth caps and clogs might have been more appropriate.
There are several events in Pinoso when people wear something that is called traditional. I often wonder if it's traditional in the way that blokes with bells on their clothes doing clodhopping type dances with clashing sticks on various village greens in England in the guise of Morris dancers or Mummers are, apparently, a part of my heritage. Those Pinoso events include Villazgo. Easter is another. There's a day in the Holy Week celebrations when women process through the streets wearing peinetas and mantillas. You know the sort of thing. Think of a, supposedly, Spanish woman in a 1950s Hollywood film, wearing something that isn't the flouncy fiesta frock. She'll have a high comb stuck into her raven coloured hair to support a very fine lace scarf that hangs around the side of her face and down her back. For most of the time though when the women in Pinoso don traditional dress they'll wear a pleated skirt, called a refajo, which is a huge circle of cloth with a circular, elasticated(?), hole for their waist pleated over and over again and usually in green, red and tonal stripes. It's the sort of skirt that the "carnival queens" wear during the Pinoso fiestas in August but it's also the skirt for the folk dancers.
Another event in the August Fiesta is the ofrenda, the flower offering. People set off from a district called Santa Catalina and parade through the streets to the Parish Church. It's one of my favourite events. The participants smile sufficiently to light up a large city. People from all over the area, even over the border into Murcia, are invited to the ofrenda and the range of traditional clothes is impressive. The contingent from Culebrón always wear those grey trousers or skirts we were told about in our toilet training days. There are blokes in velvet knee breeches and Cordoba style hats, there are women from Alicante dressed in huge silky skirts supported on some sort of scaffolding so typical of the city's San Juan fiesta. As we're in Valencia region it's very difficult not to be aware of the Fallas Fiesta which takes place in March in Valencia City (there are other fallas in other towns too) and even I can tell that there are big differences, as well as seeming similarities, between the women's outfits from Valencia and Alicante. I can't actually remember if either Alicante or Valencia features the breast enhancing bodices but they are also a big part of the ofrenda. To their credit several of our town councillors make a real effort with some splendid traditional clothes in several of these events. Indeed I was thinking of a couple of the waistcoats sported by our current mayor when I was in Corte Inglés.
Mention of the Fallas reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who was born in Valencia city. She complained that, during the dictatorship, the traditional dress had been discouraged and a sort of Francoist revision of traditional was put in place. I have no idea what the changes were - maybe fewer push up corsets - but she got very hot under the collar about it. She also told me how much her sister had spent on a dress for a recent edition of Fallas - again I forget how much but it made me blanche at the time.
Anyway. So I thought, there's a blog here about the differences that there are between traditional Pinoso and, similar but different, in Monóvar (next town down the road) or Yecla (across the frontier into Murcia). In fact someone told me that the stripes on the refajo skirts are horizontal, as against vertical, in one or the other. I was lying in bed thinking about it. I decided that books, as against the Internet, would probably be a good source of information.
I went to the library where Clara, the librarian/archivist was extremely generous with her time (and forgiving of my Spanish) as she told me about the local traditional clothes. Basically what she said was that traditional was a load of tosh. That the clothes worn came from a range of periods and the differences between an outfit in one place and another was that one town was doing the equivalent of featuring the 1960s mini skirt whilst another had chosen to highlight the 1970s catsuit (not literally you understand but figuratively) or that two towns had chosen the same basic period but one was stressing Sunday best while the other had gone with working in the fields. Add in a bit of similarity, or variety, because of the seasonal nature of the clothes, the climate they were designed for, the materials they were made of, whether the clothes were made by Balenciaga for a rich landowner or came from Stradivarius for a factory worker and lots of other sensible and obvious factors.
It was a very informative session and I borrowed a couple of books and got to see several reference books with old pictures of the area (sometimes with Clara pointing out her mum or grandma in some grainy B&W photo) but it didn't help me write the definitive guide to traditional dress in Pinoso. Maybe when I've read the books!
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