Guatemalan Cortes (or Skirts) and Men’s Pants

The weaves in these fabrics are either balanced or weft-faced. In balanced weaves, you can see the yarns running in each direction when you look at the fabric. In a weft-faced weave, the weft, or crosswise, yarn completely covers the warp yarn.

Cortes are long pieces of fabric and besides being collected as pieces of ethnic art, they can be used decoratively in many ways. Cortes 2 1/2 yards long and longer can be used to make beautiful and stylish garments. Even pieces with small damaged areas usually have enough good fabric in them to use. I have a pair of capris that I made from a beautiful blue corte that I found in a very dark market and discovered later had many small holes in it! There was enough fabric to even cut around all those holes.

Traditional Guatemalan men’s pants are seen much less frequently. Native men usually are seen in Western clothing, largely because they must dress that way in order to find work. This is sadly discriminatory and destructive of the indigenous lifestyle. I have found a very few examples of men’s pants and the are at the bottom of this page. Traditional native dress for men is as specific to each village as the women’s clothing is and the sight of a man in native dress is a wonderful thing to have the privilege to see!

I have hand-picked all of these cortes and pants. The Guatemalan clothing that one finds in markets in Guatemala has almost always been worn. Newly-woven clothing is expensive for women and they like to be able to buy new clothes periodically. So they take very good care of their clothing, often wearing it inside out to preserve it from fading and staining so they can resell it for a decent price. I look for cortes in the best condition I can find. I usually have to go through many, many pieces for sale. Pieces I buy have to also impress me with the quality of the weave and design, and the mastery of color. I have noted any imperfections in the cortes and pants in their descriptions.