The flamenco dress: folklore or costume?

In Andalusia, everything can change in a matter of days. The black, the hoods, and the rosaries – visible expressions of penance, renunciation, and faith – suddenly dissolve into an explosion of patterns, colors, flowers, and bodies that demand prominence at the Feria de Abril. The chest-beating and stark cries of Holy Week processions give way to celebration, excess, and immoderation. If in one case aesthetics impose restraint and anonymity, in the other it demands the exact opposite: to stand out and occupy space under the gaze of others. It is not just a change of atmosphere, but also a deeper displacement: from one emotion to another, from a way of feeling and inhabiting the body marked, with almost ritualistic precision, by the calendar to another. As if faith (or its theatricalization) also had seasons. And this is where one of its most eloquent instruments comes into play. Because, at the Feria, this need to be seen is dressed up. And it does so with a garment that draws all eyes: the flamenco dress.Despite the current perception, this dress was not born as a showpiece, but as clothing for the popular classes of the 19th century. It was worn by peasant women and vendors who attended Andalusian livestock fairs, especially the April Fair, which in its origins was a commercial space and not festive. Its shape responded to the patterns of the time: a fitted bodice and a voluminous skirt, in this case resolved with ruffles. These ruffles, now distinctive of the dress, have been interpreted in various ways. On the one hand, they have been linked to gypsy and Andalusian contexts, where the movement of the body (both in dance and in daily gestures) found its correlate in clothing that not only accompanied it, but also made it visible. On the other hand, they must be placed within the framework of 19th-century women's fashion, dominated by voluminous skirts supported by internal structures such as farthingales or crinolines, which limited mobility. Without evidence that they were conceived as an alternative, the ruffles nevertheless allowed volume to be generated without immobilizing the body.

Originally, the dress did not have a fixed pattern, available fabrics were used. It is not until the 20th century that polka dots are imposed, as a result of the industrialization of prints, which allowed what was previously impossible to do artisanally: to produce regular patterns like polka dots with ease. Tassels were also incorporated later. In their case, they came from the Manila shawl and, over time and with the desire to further enhance the vibrancy and dynamism, they ended up being added as decorations to the dress.What in the 19th century had been peasant clothing was progressively adopted by the upper classes, who saw in it a playful way of approaching a certain idea of authenticity. Already in the 20th century, especially during Francoism, the dress shifts and is rewritten as a symbol of Spanishness. This tradition linked to a region will be integrated into a folkloric operation, which will contribute to projecting a friendly image of the regime abroad, along with other cultural clichés that we still suffer from today, such as paella, the sun, bullfighters, and beaches.In the case of the flamenco dress, it is difficult not to recognize dynamics that continue to operate today. Aesthetics that are born on the margins and are despised from the outset – like the tracksuit of rappers or the gold hoop earrings and gel nails of chonis– end up being displaced, absorbed, reformulated, and legitimized. Garments that in their context had their own meaning and significance, but which appropriation processes and capitalist consumption empty until they become sad costumes or cheap souvenirs.