The Lost Identity in Cuban Fashion
HAVANA TIMES – In Cuba, getting dressed is not just a daily act: it is a mirror of identity and, at the same time, of crisis. The clothing that fills the streets mostly comes from pacotas (bundles of goods sent from abroad) and informal shops, where foreign brands dictate the trends and fuel the buyers’ desire. The culture of imported fashion has almost completely replaced what is authentically Cuban, leaving only the guayabera as a symbol of a tradition that refuses to disappear.
The history of fashion in Cuba cannot be told without the guayabera. Originating in the 19th century in the region of Sancti Spíritus, this light shirt, with front pockets and vertical pleats, was designed as workwear to withstand the tropical heat. Over time, it became a symbol of criollo elegance and later a protocol garment worn by presidents and diplomats. Yet today its relevance is paradoxical: celebrated at official events, but its artisan production is extremely expensive and largely inaccessible to the majority.
A Brief History of Fashion on the Island
Before 1959, Havana rivaled the great capitals of the Caribbean and Latin America in matters of style: boutiques imported garments from Paris and New York, while a budding national textile industry supplied uniforms and everyday clothing. The turning point came with the Revolution. The nationalization of factories, lack of supplies, and prioritization of strategic sectors caused the textile industry to collapse. From dozens of active factories in the 1950s, only a handful remain today, dedicated to school uniforms or work clothes. Cuban fashion, understood as local production and innovation, practically disappeared.
The Culture of Recycling and Dependence on the Foreign
The scarcity and collapse of the industry gave rise to a culture of survival: recycling. With ingenuity, Cubans turn curtains into dresses, scraps into bags, and old pants into shorts. However, the foundation of clothing remains imports. The pacotas sent by relatives from abroad and secondhand clothes bought in the informal market are the norm. The result is a fragmented textile identity, made of adapted fabrics and foreign trends, where the Cuban element hardly has a place of its own.
Artisan Fashion: Luxury and Resistance
Amid this landscape, independent designers emerge, rescuing techniques, fabrics, and concepts from tradition. Their work has given rise to a handcrafted, signature fashion that functions as cultural resistance. But these projects face an inevitable obstacle: prices. A garment made by a local designer costs much more than pacota clothing, limiting its reach to tourists or a small elite. For most Cubans, this fashion is as inspiring as it is distant.
Youth: The Most Affected
Young people experience this contradiction most intensely. Connected to global trends through Instagram and TikTok, they dream of a style of their own; but their reality is limited to what arrives from abroad. The Adidas or Nike logo on a used T-shirt becomes a status symbol. Their wardrobe is a collage of foreign brands, homemade adaptations, and recycled clothing. The possibility of wearing a truly Cuban, accessible, and modern fashion is a utopia.
Cuban cultural identity also runs through the wardrobe. Amid the decline of the textile industry, the culture of recycling, and dependence on imports, authenticity fades in a sea of imitations. Only the guayabera remains as a vestige and reminder of what was once possible. Meanwhile, the youth, who should be reinventing Cuban fashion, are forced to define themselves between foreign scraps and their own dreams.
On the Island, the question persists: what does it mean to wear a one-hundred-percent Cuban garment when almost nothing says, “Made in Cuba”?
Read more from the diary of Safie M. Gonzalez here on Havana Times.
I wish it were possible for Cubans to have the opportunity to create their own fashion garments and sell them at a price at which the population can buy them not as a luxury, but as an everyday garment.
It seems to me that because of the low wages in Cuba many industries could thrive, by creating products that are sold abroad. While the government focuses on tourism, which is hospitality and does not actually create anything uniquely Cuban, many creative, and revenue generating, opportunities are lost. While the U.S might restrict, or block, the importation of Cuban made clothes, many other countries including Canada, would not – I would love to see the words, “Made in Cuba,” printed on the tags of my clothes.