POLLERA

“Pollera”, as pictured above, is a traditional costume of Panama worn by women. It originally came from Spain during colonial times. It is basically a blouse and long skirt, which in Panama acquired its own characteristics, differentiating itself from Spanish dress and other Latin American dresses of Spanish origin.

Pollera is formed by multicolored cloth and embroidery. It can take around 8 months to make a complex design of Pollera. In addition, Pollera is also decorated with jewelry over the blouse, and the head of the woman is adorned by tortoise shell comb (peinetas) and beaded hair decorations (tembleques).

Women wear Pollera in special events such as Carnival, folklore events, and town festivities. It has received international awards due to its complex design. In view of its cultural importance, Panama celebrates the Pollera Day every year on the July 22.

Formal MONTUNO

The Montuno, as pictured above, is the traditional dress worn by men during town festivities, national celebrations, and particularly when performing Panama folk dances, together with women wearing Polleras. It consists of a white long-leeve shirt and closed neck (Camisilla), black long pant, traditional straw hat with black lines (Sombrero Pintao), small bag hanging on the left side of the body (Chacara), and black and white shoes (Chinelas).

MOLA

Kuna Indian women of the San Blas region in Panama wear a skirt and multicolored blouse, decorated in the chest and the back with “Mola”, which is a hand-made fabric with attractive geometric design of animal and scenes of daily life. They also wear red scarves on their heads and golden accessories on their arms and legs.

Tembleques

Tembleques is the name of the non-jewerly ornaments that are place in the head of the woman who wears a pollera. They are made of different materials such as wire, imitation pearls, fantasy stones and crystals, fish scales, and sometimes real pearls and gold.

The tembleques vary in their shapes and purposes. Most resemble flowers because the actually represent the flowers that women from centuries ago wore in their hair. However, some tembleques are modeled on animals. Many tembleques bear the name of flowers and others are named according to their purpose.

In total, a properly dressed wears from 12 to 15 pairs of tembleques. They can either white or multicolored.

The look isn’t complete without long, solid gold necklaces and ornate gold hair combs.

SHOES

The shoes worn with these traditional outfits are different based on the occasion.