Pineapple Fashion in the Philippines

WONG: In the Philippines, Pineapples are not just for eating. Pineapple is crafted into fabric which is used to make traditional garments for both men and women. Now the exotic paper-thin cloth is increasingly being sought after by designers in Japan, the United States and France. STORY: The women of Aklan province have been weaving pineapple cloth for two centuries. It takes them nearly a month to create one meter of pineapple fabric. The fibres are first scraped from the leaves, dried, parted into threads thinner than hair strands. The threads are knotted together into long strands and then rolled onto a bobbin. Susima dela Cruz is one of the oldest weavers in town and learned the skill from her mother and aunts. [Susima dela Cruz, Pineapple Weaver]; "It was really my ambition to become a weaver. I enjoyed it a lot. In the afternoons when my mother would step off the loom, I took her place. And when the threads broke, I put them back together. I was very interested." She eventually employed some fellow housewives as weavers and created a business making dinner sets for American clients. They now count Calvin Klein as one of their major foreign clients. With such a labour-intensive process, pineapple cloth is not cheap, selling at 2,500 pesos or $61 U.S. dollars per meter.

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YouTube | February 15, 2008

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