Hot Weather Style Advice - The Guayabera - What Is A Guayabera And How To Wear - Men's Style
Tips
Hot Weather Style in the Guayabera presented by The Art of Manliness and Real Men Real
Style.
I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Okay.
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Okay, so what am I going to be covering today?
We're going to talk about:
• What is a Guayabera?
• How to wear a Guayabera • Formality & the Guayabera
• How to buy a Guayabera
What is a Guayabera?
Okay, so the story starts that a farmer's wife, she sewed on four patch pockets on to
the front of his shirt so when he went out, he could easily pick up the local fruit.
And from there, the story gets kind of twisted because we've got the Cubans claiming that
it's their invention, the Mexicans claiming it's their invention.
There are even stories of it coming from Thailand or the Philippines, and all of these stories
seem to have Spain in common.
So where did Guayabera originate?
Not really sure.
All I can tell you is that it's an incredibly functional and stylish shirt that every man
should have in his wardrobe.
Again, what is a Guayabera?
• Two or four patch pockets on the front of the shirt.
You can see this one has four patch pockets.
• Two vertical rows of pleats.
They're actually called "tuxes" and I learned this whenever I spoke with the gentleman over
at D'Accord.
• Embroidery, so you'll see that on a lot of Guayaberas
• Straight hem and this means that the Guayabera is meant to be worn untucked, so it's incredibly
comfortable.
• The higher end Guayaberas are made from linen or cotton.
You're going to see sometimes they're going to be made from other materials, but that's
usually to save a bit of the money.
• They're often light colored.
So here, again, I took this picture from D'Accord.
They're down in Miami.
My friend, Rafael, he explained a lot of this to me.
And what you can see are the four pockets.
This one is longer sleeved.
It's made from a linen material, so you can kind of see through it, very breathable, very
comfortable, and perfectly fine for a wedding.
Let's talk about that.
How to wear a Guayabera
Well, they started off as workwear, the story I talked about originally worn by farmers.
However, it's now common to find them at festive events.
In fact, it's a tourist favorite in Miami, Cuba, or Mexico, so there are stories of Danny
Glover coming down to Miami and immediately getting a Guayabera made so that he can wear
it around.
They can be worn with jeans, but it's better to be paired with a lightweight pair of trousers
made of cotton or linen.
Here we can see Gary Cooper having a Guayabera put on him by Earnest Hemmingway.
Formality & the Guayabera
In the US, they're mostly worn casually.
However, in other parts of the Americas, they are seen alongside suits.
A formal Guayabera is long-sleeved, plain white, or light colored, two pockets, low
contrast, and tailored to fit.
Okay, here we can see the President of the United States along with other heads of other
countries, and they are wearing Guayaberas, so it just goes to show how formal a Guayabera
is.
How to Buy a Quality Guayabera
Let's talk about how to buy a quality Guayabera.
• Count the pleats. 12+ is high quality.
My friend, Rafael, explained this to me.
Most people that manufacture Guayaberas, they're going to try to save money here.
So if you count the pleats, again, those are properly called "tuxes" and they've got around
12, you can pretty much be rest assured that the rest of the Guayabera is going to be good
quality.
• Another thing to look for, length.
Now, not all the Guayaberas you're going to see out there are going to have 12 tuxes,
but they should all at least be three to five inches past your trouser waist.
• Buttons.
Look at the buttons.
Are they good quality?
• Fit.
A more tapered fit is usually going to signal better quality because it's going to be made
to fit fewer men.
• Look at the material.
Linen or cotton is best, although sometimes you'll need to go with the synthetic blend
if you're in a hurry and you want to take one as a gift.
I also know that if you're going to be indoors and you're not going to be sitting out in
super hot weather wearing this, you can go with mixed linen, but I really like linen.
Here, you can see a close-up of a Guayabera and I can see that the material, the weave,
it actually has tiny little holes which makes it so that the air is going to go through.
In addition, the embroidery is very detailed.
I can see that it's even on both sides.
And counting up the number of tuxes, I think I count 14 here.
For information about Guayaberas or men's style, make sure to visit theartofmanliness.com
or realmenrealstyle.com.
Thank you, and by the way, that is John Wayne wearing a Guayabera.