Five questions about clothing – Quick Quiz answers

By Kay and Dave McMahon, 30 November 2011

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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?