Dressing Up in the Philippines, Circa 18th Century

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The Filipino men dress up in Barong Tagalog especially for formal occasions. The translucent fabric used is either Jusi which is our local silk equivalent or pina cloth from handloomed pineapple leaf fibers. It has a front opening with some embroidery, and was originally colourless. Of late, modern barong tagalogs come in different hues. As worn, the barong tagalog is never tucked into one's pants. It is a light dress shirt typically worn to weddings, funerals and other formal affairs. A slightly less formal Filipino attire is the Polo Barong which is usually short-sleeved and made of cotton, linen or ramie materials. Many offices in the Philippines have prescribed the Polo Barong as uniforms for its male employees.

The barong tagalog preceded the advent of Spanish colonization. Tagalog is actually a dialect from a region in Southern Luzon which includes Batangas wherefrom a heritage town called Taal is made famous for its barong tagalog materials.

Baro't Saya or Terno For Filipino Women

The women have a wider range of choices, where men are limited to Barong Tagalog and Polo Barong. The former First Lady, Imelda Marcos -- she of the shoe craze fame -- popularized, and in fact looked really lovely and regal in her terno. The terno is worn in formal occasions, and has seen a lot of variations but for the standard sleeves. Then there is the baro't saya , a contraction of "baro at saya" which literally means 'blouse and skirt'. A collarless blouse is, like the barong tagalog, typically translucent, such that it is necessary to put a "baro" over the blouse. This detachable outer blouse with wide sleeves is more often elaborately embroidered to render it more formal. And where this blouse has an outer blouse, so does the skirt have an outer skirt, typically just another fabric almost carelessly draped over the inner skirt. The outer skirt or drape is not standard though. I have seen some outfits without it, but nonetheless elaborately designed.

Villa Tortuga and Villa Sariaya

Villa Tortuga is in Taal, Batangas -- just a couple of hours drive south of Manila. {check out this link for more photos and for details. Further away is Villa Sariaya in Sariaya, Quezon. (check out Sariaya, Quezon: Another Rich Man's Town) Both heritage houses rent out Filipino costumes for 250-300 pesos for pictorial purposes. One need not buy nor have these expensive costumes to be able to wear them as both houses offer this opportunity to "go back in time" and have a total feel of how our more affluent ancestors back in the 18th-19th century dressed up.


We "toyed" with some of these costumes and had a fun afternoon. The photos in sepia look more like the photos of our grandparents. Gosh, how did they survive those uncomfortable, itchy garments? It would take a lifetime for me to get into and out of those costumes. But lovely and regal, yes.


This got me searching for old photos of my grandparents. The old photos are not in good shape, but I found one worth posting here. It is that of my maternal grandmother. I remember her visiting us in her baro't saya and for the life of me, i don't understand how she managed to always look comfortable in that outfit!

A Little Bit of Trivia

During the Revolution (against the Spaniards), many of the local women hid revolutionary documents under their skirts, sewn into the hems. What an ingenious way of hiding secret files, don't you think? So while the male patriots met secretly to plot the Revolution, many of these regally-dressed women paraded in and out of the house with secret files under their skirts. Amazing!

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