Girls' Clothing

Everyday dresses, leggings and T-shirts:

make up most of what a girl wears between school and bedtime, and each wears out in its own place. Cotton T-shirts and pyjamas give at the neck and fade in the wash. Leggings thin at the knees long before the waistband goes. A casual dress nearly always gets too short while it still closes across the chest. Shoes are listed under girls’ shoes, and bows, ribbons and backpacks sit under girls’ accessories. Her brother’s T-shirts and jeans are in boys’ clothing.

Smocked dresses and other clothes with growing room:

are worth choosing on purpose, because a girl can go up a size in a single school year. A dress with a smocked or elasticated bodice and adjustable straps fits across two sizes, and once it is too short it carries on as a tunic over leggings. When she cannot come along to try things on, go by her height and the garment’s length rather than her age.

Huipiles, wrap skirts and sashes for girls:

follow the pattern of a woman’s traditional dress at a smaller scale. For many girls in the highlands this is what they wear every day; for others it comes out for school activities and the town fiesta. The skirt is a length of cloth wrapped around the waist and held by the sash, so it keeps fitting as she grows and only runs out when it no longer reaches her ankles. The huipil is a loose woven rectangle with an opening for the head, so it too lasts through several sizes. Designs belong to particular towns, and a good listing says which one, Sololá, Patzún or San Antonio Aguas Calientes, rather than just calling it traditional.

Handwoven or machine-made, in a second-hand huipil:

is the question that sets its worth. A huipil brocaded on a backstrap loom represents weeks of a weaver’s work and costs several times what a machine-embroidered one does, and it holds that value after she outgrows it. Turn it inside out. A handwoven huipil is usually two or three woven panels joined together, with finished edges rather than cut ones, and its motifs have small irregularities. Machine embroidery is even from end to end and often has a stiff backing behind it. Rub a damp white cloth on a dark part of the skirt to see whether the dye runs, and check that the sash’s edges are not fraying and the huipil’s neck opening is not worn through.

Thin-kneed leggings and tired smocking:

show up the moment you hold a piece to the light. Stretch the leggings over your hand at the knee and the seat; if you can see skin through them, they are nearly done. Pilling on the inner thigh is cosmetic, but a split seam at the crotch is not. On a smocked dress, pull the bodice gently and let go: elastic that stays slack or crackles has perished. Reversible-sequin tops lose their sequins along the fold line first.

Photos, measurements and the town a huipil comes from:

are what a buyer needs before she makes the trip. For a huipil, give the town or style, say whether it is handwoven or machine-made, and add the width and length laid flat; for a wrap skirt, its length from waist to hem. Photograph the front, the inside and a close-up of the weave in daylight, because colour is half of what is being judged. Everyday clothes go faster grouped by what they are for, swimsuits and shorts in one listing, a jacket and long sleeves in another, each with the label size, the height of the girl who wore them and the length of every dress. A mother coming down from Sololá to Panajachel for a wrap skirt will want to try it on her daughter before she pays, so say whether that is possible.