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The guayabera: Traditional tropical shirt finds new customers online

MIAMI — Legend has it that the four pockets of the guayabera were first used by a poor Cuban farmer to hold guavas.

It's the guayaberas, though, that are lining the pockets of a growing number of online shirtmaking and distributing businesses.

The guayabera — the traditional Cuban and Mexican shirt with four pockets and two vertical pleats — has been about to go mainstream for years now. While by most measures that still hasn't happened, the guayabera industry is both growing and diversifying, thanks in part to the Internet.

Online entrepreneurs have developed new niches for the shirt — such as an online guayabera store just for women. And the reach of the Internet has introduced the garment to men — and women — who may have seen them only in passing.

"People are starting to see guayaberas in more places," said Alexis Martin who has been selling guayaberas on his site, www.mycubanstore.com, since 2002 from a warehouse in Kendall, Fla.

Sales for the overall guayabera industry, let alone online, are hard to pin down because stores tend to be small, private and reluctant to tip off the competition to their specific financial details. But individual owners of online stores say their sales are growing.

Martin said he is selling between 500 and 700 shirts a month, twice as many as last year. Prices range from $24.99 for a poly-cotton one to $135.99 for an Irish linen guayabera. Martin has the shirts made for him in Mexico and China under his brand name, "Caribbean Classicware."

The vast majority of online guayabera buyers are not Hispanic, website owners said.
Mark Penner of San Antonio, Texas, sells as many as 100 shirts a day at www.pennersinc.com, all purchased from factories in Merida, Mexico or Panama. Fueled partly by recent publicity, Penner said he will have sold as many guayaberas on the web by August as during all of last year. He sells an Egyptian cotton one for $175.

Debra Torres, a New York-based designer who grew up in Miami, started a Web site a year and a half ago that sells fitted guayaberas for women, www.debratorres.com. The garments sell for between $119 and $199 each.

Until recently, she said, guayaberas for women looked just like guayaberas for men. But now she hopes hipper guayaberas for women are taking off. One client in Kansas wants Torres to design her a guayabera wedding dress, along with guayaberas for the men and women in her wedding party — a trend other sellers have also noticed.

At least one established guayabera store in South Florida is also selling more through its Web site.

Rene La Villa, along with his wife, daughter and son-in-law, runs a three-store chain called Guayaberas Etc., a wholesale business and a Web site. La Villa said they sell between 20,000 and 25,000 units a month, including the company's polos, hats and other gear. That's up 20 to 25 percent year over year.

The Web site, launched in 1998, is about the same size as one of the stores, he said. It sells between 40 and 60 shirts a day.

The stores — including online — also sell a newer line of linen guayabera tube tops. La Villa and his family, who opened their first store in 1998, are about to introduce a new tropical chic line of clothing targeted for specialty stores that they hope will appeal to non-Hispanics. They're considering opening more stores in Orlando, Texas, Nevada and California.

It's a long way from when La Villa first sold guayaberas for the Suave Shoe Corp. in the late 1970s and tried to expand the shirt's reach.

"It was a big struggle," said. "No one knew how to pronounce it."

Despite increasing sales, the guayabera has not become a staple in American wardrobes, although it's had stints at Old Navy, Banana Republic and H&M, and is sold at many Macy's.

ABOUT THE GUAYABERA:

•  The guayabera is thought by many to have originated in Cuba in the early 1800s, although Mexico also lays claim to it. The Cuban guayabera, unlike the Mexican, has pleats going down the center over the buttonholes.

•  One story says the guayabera got its name from pockets for carrying guavas. Another says the shirt was called a yayabera after the nearby Yayabo River in Cuba.

•  Miami now has an official guayabera emblazoned with the city's seal.

•  Fidel Castro first appeared at an official public event wearing a guayabera in June 1994, at the Ibero-American summit in Colombia. "How do I look?" he asked a small group of officials.

•  A 19th century Cuban poet, Juan Cristobal Napoles Fajardo (aka El Cucalambe) wrote a poem about the guayabera as a symbol of Cuba.

•  Guayabera Day is July 1, Nápoles Fajardo's birthday.

•  Guayaberas are also used in many Asian countries, including Thailand and the Philippines, with embroidery instead of pleats.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Miami Herald archives, and www.locostyle.com







Today’s Lesson:
1)  One story says the guayabera got its name from _______________________________________________________________.
2)  Some people say the guayabera has its origin in _________ in the early __________.  Others say it originated in ____________.
3)  What is the difference between the Cuban and Mexican guayabera?
4)  Guayabera Day is_______________, birthday of __________________________, the Cuban poet who wrote a poem about the guayabera as a symbol of Cuba.






Answers:
1)  The pockets that were used for carrying guavas.
2)  Cuba. 1800. Mexico.
3)  The Cuban guayabera has pleats going down the center over the buttonholes.
4)  July 1. Juan Cristobal Napoles Fajardo.