Fashion And Customs

Argentina 1870-1914

Fashion and costumes










Cabrera, Verónica
Farias, Silvia
Hernández, Jésica
Oshiro, MelinaSottani, Sofía








Fashion and costumes


In Argentina in the period between 1870 and 1914, Europe influenced our country in lots of customes and fashion. However, in Argentina there were groups of people that were called gauchos, they were farmers and hunters and they made their activities by horse. They lived in houses called ranchos which were builted with mud, cane,and straw. Gauchos didin’t have much furniture yet they had a barrel with water and drank it with a jar. Their customs were to drink mate, to eat roasted meat and to listen to folklore and dance. Nowadays those are still strong habits among Argentinians. Gauchos’ clothing consisted on a trouser (chiripa, piece of clothing made of wool), a hat, a poncho and leather boots that were made bythemselves. Gauchos were used as soldiers in the fight against natives who were being displaced from their own land. Natives were great hunters and collectors, and they wore animal fur and lived in huts. Some of them were nomadic, and some of them were sedentary.
This period was the strongest immigration wave. Most of the immigrants were Italians who took possession of houses that nowadays are calledconventillos. Argentinians adopted some customs from Italians, like pasta and pizza. Also a new jargon was born, lunfardo. It came from the summation of inmigrant’s different languages.
At that time women had to wash their clothes in the river and in some houses they used troughs because there weren’t any washing machines. Women had to look for water in the well to do the housework.In the higher social classes it was a custom to take photographs. They held the kids’ necks with a neck immobilizer, so they were sure the kids were going to be still for the photographs. They also used to take photographs to dead people, but later on they stopped this custom because it was considered unsanitary.


Jobs
At that time most poor men worked as walking sellers, theynot only sold candles, cigarettes or newspapers but also food such as fish, milk, meat, fruit and vegetables. Fishermen went to the river with horses which pulled the nets so they could fish and then sell the product. Farmers had animals like sheep and cows from which they took milk and meat and then they sold it. Greengrocers collected fruit and vegetables and they sold them from door to door.Another popular job was working on textile industries which were established in 1870 in the principal cities of the country.
The railway gave work to the majority of the immigrant population. And it also implied a huge change in Buenos Aires’ economy. The city became more European in its tastes and fashions: cosmopolite population, with European architecture and with an active port.Sports
Cricket is played in Argentina since 1806. It was brought by the British army during the first English invasion. Football was very popular at that time also. The Argentine Association Football League was founded in 1893 and nowadays it is known as the AFA. It was also a custom to play jineteada gaucha, which is a traditional Argentinian sport which consists in a horseman who has tohold on to a colt from six to fifteen seconds.
In 1953 pato was declared as the national sport of Argentina. This sport was invented by the gauchos and in its beginning it was played with a dead or alive duck inside a bag and that is where its name comes from. In the XIX century the game was prohibited by the government and punished by the Church with excommunication. However, it remained...