Pollera

A pollera is a Spanish term for a large one-piece skirt used mostly in traditional festivities and folklore throughout Spanish-speaking Latin America.

Polleras are a form of Spanish colonial dress enforced sometime between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on indigenous populations in the Andes by hacienda owners or hacendados.

The clothing includes a headdress called a tembleque (or tembeleque) which is made of beads attached to a spring so that they shake when the wearer dances.

The adornments are embroidery or needlework on the skirt and upper part that are sewn entirely by hand in several steps that progressively build the desired effect.

The urban pollera typical of the Bolivian altiplano should be made of 8 metres (26 ft) of cloth and it is worn with 4–5 embroidered underskirts.

Image of Panamanian polleras : a red pollera de lujo , an older traditional pollera and a blue pollera de lujo (lit. 'luxury pollera ')
A Peruvian pollera