Piña & Filipiniana

History and Origin of Piña

“Piña” fiber is extracted from the leaves of a pineapple plant. Its scientific name is Ananas comosus. The fibers are ivory-white in color and naturally glossy. The cloth is translucent, soft and fine with high luster. Piña fiber is often blended with cotton, abaca, silk, or polyester to create wonderful light, breezy fabrics. Since piña fabric is hand-loomed by only a few weavers, it is very precious and scarce, which also makes it expensive.

The piña fiber is used mainly for the Barong Tagalog, also for wedding dresses and other traditional Philippine formal dress. It is also used for table linens, mats, bags and other clothing items. Because it is lightweight but stiff, this sheer fabric can be used in any creative design. Noted couturiers in the local fashion scene are now using the fabric in their creations for haute couture shows worldwide.

Piña’s name comes from the Spanish word “piña” which literally means pineapple. The Spanish Red or Native Philippine Red pineapple variety takes about 18 months to reach maturity. They thrive best in open fields with sandy clay soil. The pineapple plant grows spiny leaves up to two meters in length. It is said that the leaves of these varieties yield excellent fibers for handweaving. After about a year from planting, three to five leaves are cut from each plant.

Because piña comes from a leaf, the leaf must first be cut from the plant. Then the fiber is pulled or split away from the leaf. Each strand of the piña fiber is hand-scraped and knotted one by one to form a continuous filament to be handwoven and then made into a piña cloth. The green epidermal layer is scraped off the leaf with tools made from coconut shells, coconut husks or pottery shards. Extraction from the long, stiff leaves is time-consuming and labor-intensive. These fibers are then spun into soft, shimmering fabrics by hand. Because the fiber is fine and breaks easily, working with it is slow and tedious. Workers are constantly knotting broken threads. The result is a lightweight, transparent fabric that is positively beautiful.

The liniwan is the finest fiber, used for weaving the piña cloth. The second layer, bastos, is a coarse fiber used in making strings or twine. The finer fiber is called pinukpok. All these fibers are combed to clean them further (usually by the river since it is believed that its water makes the strands whiter) and render them easy for hand knotting into continuous strands. Since the individual stripped fiber is no longer than 30 inches, the fibers have to be knotted. This process is known in the dialect as pag-panug-ot, an utterly delicate and laborious task. A piece of bamboo is fashioned into a blade to cut off the end of each knot.

The next step is warping. This is done on pegs struck in a board. Another laborious step, it usually takes 15 to 20 days to warp enough yarns to complete a "sucod" of 18 to 20 "bucos" or 54 to 60 meters of cloth.

Pag-talinyas or spinning is likewise executed with a crude hand-operated bobbin winder which is turned by the right hand while the left hand drills the strand into a tiny mold made of reed or tabun-ak. This process makes the material ready for the loom. The loom has a foot-operated treadle with an extended overhead warp beam with two harnesses and two treadles. The warp is wound into the warp beam. Then it is threaded into the boddle (benting) reed or sucod. The benting allows the warp to open when the treadle is pressed with the feet. The sucod is used to press the weft to thicken the cloth.

The thickness and width of the cloth are determined by the sucod. There are the 65, 70 and 80 types of winder. For instance, the 65 sucod produces a cloth of about 24 inches in width; 70 sucod, 29 inches, and the 80 sucod, 31 to 32 inches. Dyeing the fiber to any desired color may be executed at this point. Natural piña is beige, off-white, or ecru, but dyeing can produce blue or black piña cloth. These handwoven fabrics are colored with vegetable dyes made from the leaves and bark of different trees. The result is equally dramatic and charming.

In the olden days, the weavers decided on their own design. The designs usually took the form of flowers, fruits, coconut trees, nipa huts or other designs concocted by the weaver’s imagination. The designs may have been copied from cloths, which have already been designed or inlaid into the fabric with the aid of graph paper. In the case of the latter, the design is made on the warp. The traditional decoration for this fabric is a style of hand embroidery called calado. An embroidered piña garment is called piña calado. It takes 8 hours to finish one meter of plain weave cloth, and only one-half to three-quarters of a meter may be finished if the cloth has a design. The amount of time spent on the cloth depends on the intricacy of the design. Piña cloth weaving reached its peak of perfection in the late 18th century and in the first half of the 19th century. The decree of the Franciscan chapter of 1580, which urged the teaching of the crafts and trades, has further helped promote piña cloth weaving. The Spanish missionary nuns taught the young girls not only religion, but also other crafts like embroidery that honed the natives' skills and talents.

The piña fiber and cloth industry is centered in Aklan. Aklan is the main and the oldest manufacturer/weaver of piña cloth in the Philippines. But in recent years, Negros Oriental and Palawan have started their own cultivation of the Red Spanish pineapple variety from Aklan, in addition to conducting skills training programs on fiber extraction and weaving. The Aklan piña cloth is woven from the finest mature leaves of native pineapples. Pineapple silk is considered the queen of Philippine fabrics and the fabric of choice of the Philippine elite. Today, piña cloth is being exported to various parts of the world particularly North America and Europe.

Tapis

The tapis is strikingly akin to most basic female garments in the Southeast Asian world, and seems somehow related to the Indian sari. The Filipino wrap-around skirt called tapis or patadyong may have emerged from environmental conditions and technical repertoires similar to those that produced the sarong and the sari.

As the female counterpart to the loincloth, the tapis covered the genital area. Again, fertility may have been an associated value—but in what precise ways? One can only guess.

The tapis was wrapped around the lower half of the woman's body and tied at the waist or below the breasts. It was secured in place by the knotted ends or by a length of braided material. In some societies, belt-like pieces were used.

Maria Clara

The Maria Clara dress is an elegant formal outfit for women. It is considered a mestiza dress because it is an ensemble combining indigenous and Spanish influences. The Maria Clara dress became very popular during the Spanish era since its emergence in 1890.

The name was taken from the legendary Maria Clara, the heroine of Noli Me Tangere, the then recently published novel by Dr. José Rizal. Maria Clara remains a symbol of the virtues and nobility of the Filipina woman.

Its origin was the traditional baro't saya of early Filipinos: the original ensemble of a loose, long-sleeved blouse over a wide, ankle-length skirt. The Maria Clara consists of four separate pieces: the baro or the camisa, the saya, the panuelo and the tapis.

The camisa was a collarless waist-length blouse, with wrist-length, richly embroidered flowing bell sleeves, often made of pineapple fiber. The sleeves were made wider and bell-shaped to suit the hot climate of the country.

The saya literally means “skirt”. It’s a bubble-shaped, floor-length skirt. It evolved from the lowly saya of old. It was, however, made wider, flared and billowy. Several saya styles or cuts became popular in different Philippine regions and perhaps the most popular is the "paneled saya" where panels of strongly contrasting or coordinating colors are sewn alternately into a ballooning saya. The favorite combinations were black and white, and black and red.

The panuelo derived its name from the Spanish "paño," which means cloth. The panuelo is the only Spanish-originating part of the Maria Clara ensemble. It is a wide, stiff, triangular scarf covering the back and fastened securely in the front by gold brooches or pins. The addition of the panuelo was the period's concession to modesty with the camisa being low-necked, and made of the flimsiest fabrics, like piña and jusi.

The tapis is a hip-hugging, knee-length overskirt. The addition of the tapis as overskirt was to keep the lower torso from showing through the sheerness of the skirt material. Opaque muslin and "madras" were used for the overskirt.

At present, it is typically worn during folk dance and theater arts performances that feature the rich cultural heritage of the Filipinos. It has become one of the types of traditional formal wear used during some political and social gatherings. It is also sometimes worn by brides at their weddings.

Baro’t Saya

The Spanish era brought about Spanish ethics, which influenced Christianized women to wear a skirt called the saya and a blouse called the baro, which was worn throughout the more than 300 years of Spanish colonization.

The baro had wide sleeves and was consistently made of fine fabrics and was said to have been influenced by the costume of the statues of the Blessed Virgin.

The saya was generally fashioned out of opaque plaid or striped cotton and sinamay varieties. It was to remain unelaborated until the period of intensified global trade.

Since the baro was made of fine material, a square kerchief called alampay, usually made of the same fabric as the saya, was worn over the baro to cover the breasts; it also doubled as a veil and was later called the panuelo.

An overskirt made of darker, thicker material known as the tapis was wrapped around the lower half of the woman's body and tied at the waist or below the breasts. It was secured in place by the knotted ends or by a length of braided material. In some societies, belt-like pieces were used. The tapis was an assertion of native pride. To this day, the tapis is worn by older women in barrios all over the Philippines.

When the Spaniards ruled over the country, one of their three missions was to spread Christianity. With the advent of religiosity and veneration of the Blessed Virgin, the Filipino women's clothing transformed to that of conservatism. Showing off certain parts of the body like one's foot or leg was a great taboo.

Balintawak

The Balintawak is a traditional Filipino costume that has a shortened skirt, with puffy butterfly short sleeves, plaid textile, and low-cut bodice and at times plenty of ornate embroidery. It was worn during picnics and other jaunts into the countryside.

The balintawak was deeply associated with Antipolo, a favorite summer destination for Manila dwellers. This costume was to epitomize Filipina gaiety, lightheartedness, and her costuming sense of rural roots. Even when it was absorbed into the domain of haute couture, the balintawak continued to signal song, dance, and festivity.

Traje de Mestiza

At the turn of the century, through the revolution against Spain and the Spanish–American War, Filipinos asserted themselves by crystallizing their identity in costume. For more than three hundred years, Filipinas wore plain wrap-around skirts (saya) fashioned out of opaque plaid or striped cotton and sinamay varieties, and the baro (blouse) fashioned out of sheer lace fabrics.

In 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. From the Spanish colony, we moved into the American colonial era (1898–1946). This gave way to “Americana” in the Philippines, where Hollywood movies, musicals, and magazines were introduced. Inspired by Hollywood, Filipinos created a stunning costume called the “traje de mestiza.” Traje is the Spanish word for dress. Mestizo comes from the Latin word mixticius, meaning “mixed.” Roughly translated, traje de mestiza means mestiza dress.

The traje de mestiza was in fact the "Maria Clara", trimmed into a shapely modernity, with detailed embroidered skirts. The camisa became a clinging bodice, with delicate oversized lace bell-shaped sleeves. The saya became slimmer, burst out at the hem into a flare, and acquired a train (saya de cola, “skirt with a tail”), leading to the new look.

The gown became the star of the zarzuelas with all the glittering glamour of a beauty queen.

Terno

In the history of Filipino women's dress, the most prominent garment is the terno. The word terno comes from Spanish and means “to match”; the dress was literally composed of two parts, the upper and the lower.

The Filipino terno alludes to the matching of the blouse and skirt, joined at the waist to form a one-piece creation, with both bodice and skirt made of the same material. The terno as we know it today evolved from an ensemble called baro’t saya (blouse and skirt), transformed into the Maria Clara, which, in turn, was metamorphosed into the traje de mestiza.

The seamlessness is only one of its inventive features. The sleeves are upright, flat against the shoulders like clipped butterfly wings, the low neckline contours the bosom and the whole dress is nipped at the waist to let fall a shapely skirt that is rounded, flared or trailed at the hem.

When the sleeves were clipped like butterfly wings, the panuelo became cumbersome and was then removed. So, too, went the tapis, to allow the skirt to flirt with the whims of fashion. Skirt draping, shirring, folding, pleating, and layering were just some of the fashionable touches. The tail of the terno was in use until the early 1930s, when its popularity started to wane.

By the 1930s, the terno had acquired the features that were to distinguish it until the end of the colonial era. The terno graced Flores de Mayo processions, rigodon de honor, coronation nights and the Malacañang Palace. It has been called a masterpiece, a classic, a national treasure.

Barong Tagalog

In 1975, President Ferdinand E. Marcos designated the Barong Tagalog as “the national attire” and a presidential proclamation declared May 5–11, 1975, Barong Filipino Week. The proclamation was meant “to focus public attention on the national attire so as to promote wider use, as well as boost its export potential.” Its fine needlework or hand-painted designs in cool cotton or handwoven piña or jusi have given it a flair that has won international recognition and acceptance.

Barong is actually short for Barong Tagalog, which describes the formal men's wear of the Philippines. It is properly referred to as the 'Baro ng Tagalog' (dress of the Tagalog). Contracting the first two words produces 'Barong,' which literally means 'dress of.' The Barong Tagalog was considered a dress, a garment, a coat in itself. It is not merely a 'shirt'. If it were, then it would need a coat or a jacket over it to qualify as formal wear and would have to be worn tucked inside the trousers.

The earliest known fact about the Baro ng Tagalog was that before the Spaniards arrived in the archipelago, the Tagalogs who lived on the island of Luzon wore the baro, which evolved from pre-Hispanic native wear over the course of more than four centuries. Throughout its evolution, various factors have influenced the look of the Barong Tagalog, primarily the loose, long lines of the Chinese, airy tropical appearance of Indo-Malay costume, elongated effect of the Hindu dressing, and the ornamental restraint of European men’s clothing. For the most part, it has retained its essential look since it was first worn: round neck, straight long sleeves, mid-thigh hemline and then modified with collar, cuffs and side slits.

In the 1700s, when the Spanish brought in their dressy shirt with standing collar, the use of the baro was confined to the Ilustrado (male members of families who owned landed estates and were invested with some authority in the community). They were not allowed to tuck the baro under the waistband or to have any pockets, reminding the Indios that despite their wealth and power, they remained natives. They were also easily identifiable to the Spanish rulers. Another source says the baro was tucked out for health reasons: the use of locally grown cloth made from pineapple or abaca fibers caused rashes and skin irritation. The country’s tropical climate also favored clothes that are tucked out, just as in other Asian nations. Filipino household help were also given “hand-me-downs” by their foreign employers, and since Filipinos were shorter and smaller in build, the baro simply looked better tucked out.

Today, Filipinos (as well as non-Filipinos) continue to wear the Barong Tagalog, which enjoys distinguished acceptance worldwide. It is worn during weddings and formal occasions.

Alongside this trend, the baro turned informal with the introduction of the short-sleeved variety (made of cotton, Philippine ramie and later, in the seventies, of chiffonille) called "polo Barong." The polo Barong was so well received that it soon became the unofficial uniform of Filipinos who work, study and play. In other words, this shorter version became the all-around wear of Filipinos. It has been said that the polo Barong may as well be the present generation's answer to yesteryear’s camisa de chino.

Piña Exhibit

Evolution of Philippine Costume

Philippine Costumes in 18th - 19th Century