Skirts

The enagua típica and its ribbon-trimmed flounces:

the skirt of the national costume is cut to move. It falls to the ankle, gathers onto an elastic waist and opens into a double flounce edged with ribbon, full enough for a dancer to lift and swirl into a blur of colour that recalls a painted oxcart wheel. The Guanacaste version is a plainer A-line in light cotton printed with small flowers, and around Limón the quadrille is danced in a printed enagua with a headwrap. Folk dance groups from San Ramón to Pérez Zeledón keep them in use, and dancers tend to leave a group before the cloth gives out. The white ruffled blouse worn with it is in tops.

Everyday skirts, told apart by their fabric:

the cloth decides how a skirt behaves more than its shape does. A satin slip skirt, cut on the bias so it skims the hip, is the dressy midi for an evening out: it creases and marks with a drop of water. Linen and cotton breathe and wrinkle in the same breath. Pleats heat-set into polyester stay sharp through every wash, while pleats in natural fibre soften and have to be pressed back in. A denim skirt does the job of jeans on a hot day. A skort hides shorts under its front panel and is the one that copes with a high bus step or a gust of wind.

Where the hem of a midi skirt lands:

a midi can stop just below the knee on one woman and at mid-calf on another, and on a short frame the same skirt reads as a maxi. An elastic or drawstring waist forgives a size either way; a fitted waist with a zip has to be right. A pencil skirt needs a back slit to walk in. If matching a top feels like a chore, a midi in dresses does it in one piece.

A new midi skirt against one already worn:

new, a midi from an international high-street label costs around ₡18,000 to ₡45,000, linen and structured pieces at the top. A skirt has no knees or inner thighs to wear through, so a used one is rarely held back by wear. What pulls its price down is a waist that fits few people and a cut that has had its season, which is why a plain black or navy midi finds a buyer long after last year’s printed mini has stopped moving.

A used skirt turned inside out:

run an invisible zip end to end and watch for teeth parting below the pull. On satin, tilt the skirt to the light for pulled threads and look along the slit, where the seam can slip apart. On pleats, look across the seat, where sitting flattens them first. Stretch an elastic waist: if it crackles or stays wavy, it is finished. Hold a pale linen or cotton skirt up to the window; unlined, many are sheer in sunlight. Here the slip worn underneath is a fustán, not an enagua, so ask whether one comes with it. On a típica, check that the ribbons are still stitched flat and that their colours have not bled into each other in the wash.

A skirt laid flat on the bed, zip closed:

measure the waist straight across and double it, then the hip a hand’s width lower, then the length from the top of the waistband to the hem. Give the fibre from the label: satin can be polyester or viscose, and they iron differently. Photograph the front, the back, the zip and the inside, and hang a pleated skirt so the pleats read. Say whether the hem has been taken up. For a típica, spread the flounces across the floor for one shot, and give the length, since it should brush the dancer’s ankle. Listed with its matching blouse, a típica suits a dancer who needs the whole costume at once; on its own, it waits for someone whose blouse already matches the ribbons.