The Cuban guayabera shirt is a very unique and authentic shirt with its roots in Cuba’s colonial era. These shirts have become an expression of Cubans and people of Hispanic descent alike.

The guayabera shirt was born in the tropics and as tropical attire it is a shirt that takes the heat into consideration. The shirt is worn un-tucked and it has a roomy and relaxed feel to it. The guayabera shirt has four front pockets with pin-tucks of fine folded fabric in the front and back of the shirts; these pleats give the shirt a unique look like a combination between a jacket and shirt.

The many details on the shirt makes it one of a kind, the guayabera is decorated with pleats and buttons in different ways. The back of the traditional Cuban guayabera shirt display three roads of pleats resembling the three bands in the Cuban flag. The shirts feature slits at the seams at the bottom sides said to be used by the Cuban freedom fighters to make it easy to get their machete out for the fight.

The guayabera shirt is of Cuban origin, Mexico also claim the shirt as its own. The truth is that by the mid 1800’s the guayabera was popular enough to be mentioned by one of the most famous Cuban poets of the time, Juan Christobal Napoles Fajardo known as “El Cucalambe”.  He mentions it in his poem for the Guayabera from the book “Rumores del Hórmigo”, by doing this, Juan Christobal became the first known writer acknowledging the existence of the shirt. Interesting enough the Spanish army wore a shirt called radillo guayabera as uniform during the Cuban independence war. This uniform shirt looked a lot like the guayabera with four front pockets.

Guayaberas are also popular beach wedding shirts and many people refer to them as Mexican wedding shirts. They are comfortable, light and elegant attire for a destination wedding, the shirt is a traditional attire for special occasions in México, Cuba and most of Latin America. Guayaberas are worn at weddings where the men in whole wedding party are dressed with the guayabera shirt, matching the colors with the bridesmaids and creating a unique Caribbean theme.

100% Linen Guayabera shirt	100% Cotton Guayabera shirt

One of the major producers of guayaberas is the town of Merida in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and the they are known for their good quality and the many factories dedicated to this shirt.  As result, Mexico is one of the mayor exporters of this garment to the United States and the world. In the past years many of the big Asian producers have also been exporting guayaberas to the United States.

After the Cuban revolution in 1959 the guayabera shirt became a symbol of the state power against their people. The secret police and the communist leaders are often seen wearing these shirts and as a result people stopped using them.  The shirt lost popularity in Cuba as it was relegated as some kind of unofficial uniform for the state. In the year 2010 the Cuban government declared the guayabera an official uniform.

Guayaberas have always been worn by Cubans in Miami and all over the world, outside of Cuba; Cubans abroad didn’t have the same attitude towards the shirt. Cuban exiles remembered the shirt as the main national clothing during the Cuban Republic. Famous figures such as Ernest Hemingway wore the shirt all the time while he was living in Cuba and in the political arena the shirt was gaining popularity to the point of competing with linen suits and other more formal attire. Today the guayabera is the garment of choice not only for Cubans but for anyone who requires elegance and comfort in the tropics.

Article by:

Alexis Martin

MyCubanStore.com