Five questions about clothing – Quick Quiz answers
We gave you the names of five garments and asked you to tell us what they are and where they come from. Here are the answers:
- A dashiki is a colourful embroidered man’s shirt, and is worn extensively across West Africa (the word itself is from the Yoruba language). A very similar garment, the Madiba shirt, has been made famous by Nelson Mandela.
- An áo dài is a long tunic, tight-fitting on the upper body but with long side vents on the lower part, worn by Vietnamese women over pantaloons.
- The keffiyeh is probably the most familiar of all these garments worldwide, even though it’s as distinctive of a particular region as any of the others – it’s the head-dress worn by many Arabs and Kurds and popularised by Yasser Arafat.
- Ajotas, on the other hand, may be the most widespread of them all, albeit under varying names – they’re sandals made from old vehicle tyres. Many societies in developing countries around the world have adopted them as cheap footwear – ajotas are the Peruvian version.
- The għonnella was a traditional cloak or shawl with a broad, framed bonnet on top, worn by women. It was virtually ubiquitous in Malta and Gozo for centuries, but fell out of fashion in the mid-twentieth century and has now disappeared.
How did you get on? Why not let us know?
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