Trousers (salwal)

Filipino weavers are renowned for their skill in creating textiles from leaf fibers like piña (leaves from a type of pineapple plant) and abaca (fibers from leaves of a species of banana tree). This pair of men’s short pants is made of abaca. The term for pants is similar in many Philippine languages and is ultimately derived from a Persian term for trousers, shalwar. It was likely that Muslim traders, who had come to the Philippines by the 1300s, introduced pants to a culture that commonly wore loincloths or draped, sarong-like garments.

The pattern on the cloth is created by a stitch-resist technique known as tritik, similar to the Japanese technique of shibori. First a pattern is marked on the cloth, and then a thread is stitched following the pattern. One end of the sewing thread is pulled tight, gathering and compressing the fabric and protecting certain areas when the textile is dipped into a dye bath. When the stitches are removed, the protected areas retain the original color of the undyed cloth.