A while ago, I went to Ecuador.
The thing I regret most about that trip is that I didn't buy a poncho. I hardly bought any textiles, in fact, which was completely stupid because Ecuador has some nice textiles - thanks to all the alpacas that just roam the streets, benevolently dropping strands of their wool for craftsmen to pick up and make into yarn.
I want to shave you and make your hair into clothing.
The reason that I didn't buy one was because it hadn't yet occurred to me that the poncho was capable of good. Like everyone else on the planet, I was disdainful of the poncho. For some reason, ponchos have become ridiculous.
However, I recently saw The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Besides the excellent filmmaking, I noticed one thing that I will NEVER FORGET - how impeccably the costumers dressed Clint Eastwood. Especially in this scene. (~*spoiler alert*~)
That. Fucking. Poncho. I was consumed with the desire to acquire one of my own. As I write this, a poncho is making its way toward my shipping address.
My zeal for the poncho has only been tempered by my fear of the stigma associated with it. Where does it come from? Why do we, as a people, think ponchos are such a joke?
In my memory, I have encountered ponchos in four different places, all in different incarnations. The first time I ever encountered one, circa 1997, was at Busch Gardens, in Tampa, Florida – one of our nation’s great cultural centers. It was a sheet of plastic with a hood, and maybe there was a white Bengal tiger’s face printed on the back. I wore it on a water ride so that I wouldn’t get wet.
The next type of poncho I met was the worst kind – perhaps the variety that has soured the public against this noble garment. It was 2003 or 2004; I was in middle school. A classmate wore a tangled, matted, burnt orange poncho in a gaping knit; it looked like it had been shredded and stretched. It looked like a threadbare rag, but it was da style. I also saw things of its ilk in the mall, at Limited Too and Filene’s. Of course, I thought it was horrible – because I was “goth,” but also because it was. I’m proud that I had some semblance of taste back then. This incarnation of the poncho went right along with Uggs, which had left their traditional role as my Australian neighbor’s slippers to become ~*DA NEW THING*~ around the same time.
Et tu, Dolce? The origin of the ugly poncho.
Maybe both heinous trends sprang from the same place. The online magazine Slate published an article by Amanda Fortini charting the poncho’s development in October 2004. Fortini spoke to fans of the poncho and found that “the look is ‘comfortable and comforting.’” She suggests that the resurgence of the poncho was a backlash to the extreme low-rise trend that dominated denim for years.
Fortunately, this breed of poncho died off quickly. Tragically, though, Uggs are still in high demand, and the brand has expanded into outerwear and accessories, quenching Americans’ thirst for shearling-lined bags. Now, not only can we wear slippers and sweatpants and pass that off as “being dressed,” we can also wear gloves and carry bags that are actually made out of slippers. We can just wrap ourselves in sheepskin and then roll around on our sheepskin rugs.
Sheepskin Octo Rug, $650. Uggaustralia.com
The third time I encountered a poncho was in its original land – in context. One of the stops on my trip to Ecuador was at a hacienda in the páramo, the Andean highlands. There we were treated to a trail ride across the high-elevation grass and scrub. It gets very cold and windy up in the Andes, so the hacienda outfitted us with dense alpaca-hide chaps and red ponchos. We all thought we looked fucking ridiculous. The poncho was heavy and not very soft. For part of the ride, I disregarded the poncho, flipping it over my shoulder. However, it soon got very cold and I pulled it down and snuggled into it. Shortly I was comfortably warm, and the poncho’s heft turned out to be a virtue – it’s so heavy that cold mountain breezes can’t get through it. In the Andes, it is a truly functional garment: a useful precursor to the Snuggie.
A descendant of the poncho.
The final time I met the poncho was, of course, in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, when I realized that it could be an element of my wardrobe. Maybe the reason the poncho has met with such derision is that it has no function in the upper United States. In her 2004 takedown of the poncho, Fortini jabbed:
"Ponchos are not "comfortable," either. Try carrying a purse while wearing one: hang the purse over the poncho, the ample underarm fabric bunches up; carry it beneath and it creates a tumorlike protrusion. As for the mitten theory, the real way a poncho resembles a mitten is that both items partially incapacitate their wearer… So, you can't quite call the poncho practical... Most ponchos you see on the street are flimsy, assembly-line creations of "crocheted" rayon, nylon, acrylic—often bordered by a clumpy, tangled fringe—that make a woman appear as though she is dressed in a doily.
The failure of the poncho in the early millennium wasn’t the fault of the poncho – it was the fault of the designers and manufacturers who perverted it into an overwrought mishmash of fringe and doily crochet patterns. The fashion industry made an attempt to make this garment functional and contextual in a place where it is removed from both its original function and context. That was the mistake.
So why am I so sure that I, of all people, can do anything with a poncho? First of all, I’ll be purchasing an actual piece of craftsmanship, made of alpaca wool – not a mess of crocheting and beads. One of the problems with the 2004 poncho, according to Fortini, was its impracticality – you couldn’t carry a bag or use your arms. That is true, unfortunately…but only if you wear the poncho so that it hangs straight down from your shoulders.
The Andean poncho and its inbred cousin.
I didn’t notice Eastwood’s poncho until he flipped it over his shoulder. That simple movement elevates it into something indescribable…my breath caught in my throat. It was still a poncho, but all of a sudden, it was stylish. It increased his swagger.
I see you there, sheepskin.
Admittedly, it’s still not the most practical thing on earth – because it has been removed from its context. It’s highly pragmatic in the páramo; not so much on the streets of Philadelphia. Fashion, however, has a habit of appropriating garments and taking them out of context. To name a few – harem pants, aviator glasses, biker jackets, riding boots, blazers, band jackets, trench coats…ridiculous!
But that, like any art, is at the essence of fashion: inspiration, borrowing, adapting, elevating. Of all the things I mentioned above, none of them (in my memory) have been reimagined as wrong-headedly as the poncho was in the early part of this decade.
In the next decade, however, I think we will get it right.
Runway photos courtesy of style.com
