The traditional costume
Silks, embroideries and other fabrics, cottons, frills, lace and madras (brought in from the Pondicherry trading posts) were reserved for the master's family. Women dressed in the Josephine fashion, with high-waisted dresses. It was this costume that prompted seamstresses to make the traditional costume known as the gol. It was also this same Josephine costume that gave its name to the quadrille, the dance known as Haute-taille or Taille-haute. Little by little, with the abolition of slavery, the dresses worn by beke women became models that inspired enslaved women of the time. They began to dress like Creole women. Some free women of color also emancipated themselves by wearing the gol créole. Putting everything in context, it's important to remember that the word "Creole" at the time referred to people of European origin born in the West Indies.
In an extract from Martinique d'antan, le costume, a book published in 1982 and produced by students at LEP Dillon, Saint-Joseph annex, it is stated: "There are two kinds of cut-out gol , one called Princesse which is loose, white, richly embroidered with a few veins and often made of cotton, worn with a headdress. The other, called gol-Empire, is enriched with embroidery and ribbing, and is distinguished by its cut-out under the bust and its very close-fitting line. Both dresses have short sleeves adorned with pleats and lace, reaching to the elbow. Some women slip them on nowadays, embellished with jewelry.
The skirt and shirt or bodice: the so-called Titanium suit
Excerpts from Mireille Léopoldie-Lésel's La Tête chaudière, published by Éditions Exbrayat in June 2022, will help us understand and make the necessary distinctions between different costumes.
"La Titane is the name of the ball where the women of the people went on Sundays, and it's this word that has given the costume its title. It consists of a long, lace-trimmed white shirt that doubles as a petticoat. It is characterized by a starched and embroidered white underskirt under a skirt stitched at the waist, the costume of the freedmen. The shirt is worn under the wide skirt, in brocaded silk or floral cotton. A brightly-colored scarf is worn either around the neck or over the shoulder, with a three-tipped headdress.
The Matadore
She's wearing the same outfit as the one who wears the Titanium suit, a square silk scarf, folded according to her whim. This scarf can be wrapped around the neck and placed carelessly on the right shoulder. The headdress is made of madras with a flap that slopes down to the nape of the neck, the fan being sewn to the front. The headdress completes the outfit, which is always embellished with jewelry. Necklaces, earrings, trembling pins and gold bracelets are all more beautiful than the last, and bear witness to the talent of Creole goldsmiths and the wealth of the owner, or to his great patience, for this jewelry made of gold grains will be offered or purchased progressively, grain by grain, one by one, and then completed by the purchase of the barrel, which is the clasp. Depending on the buyer's perseverance, the necklace can be two or even three times around the neck.
The simple dress says Ti Collet
It has an officer's collar reminiscent of a smock, a kind of blouse. It's worn by children and young girls. It's made of pastel-colored floral cotton fabric, and is worn with a madras cap at one end. It's cinched at the waist with a scarf, depending on the circumstances. Worn without a petticoat, it's an everyday outfit. These outfits have all but disappeared in favor of Western fashion. Nowadays, dressmakers draw their inspiration from them.
The comforter or grand-robe
It is a ceremonial dress that constitutes the traditional Martinique costume, it is a fabric of pomp and circumstance, in brocaded satin. There is the dress or comforter, the petticoat with small pleats sometimes two floors. The large pleated collar is called the visit or collar. All this is made of the same fabric as the petticoat.
This costume is generally worn with a headdress called boiler head or with a headdress called calendered boiler head which is worked with chrome, hence the expression calendered boiler head
The headdresses or heads
All these outfits are worn with a headdress, another essential element of Creole costume. The headdress is made of madras, with one, two, three or four ends. A chaudière headdress is neutral, while a calendée headdress has been worked with gum arabic and yellow chrome. The devilish headdress for carnival is white, in the shape of a cone. The coiffe-bèlè is the most common headdress.
A perusal of the archives reveals colonial laws forbidding freed young women to wear hats during the period of slavery. The simple act of wearing a headscarf to protect oneself from the sun was considered an insult. So these Creoles created madras headdresses from a square of colored fabric from India, the madras.
Free people of color often set up shop as tailors or seamstresses. They created and invented Creole fashion, a blend of African and European elegance.
Excerpts from La Tête chaudière, Mireille Léopoldie-Lésel, Éditions Exbrayat, June 2022.
The jewels and their stories
Martinique has long had a reputation for beautiful costumes and remarkable jewelry. Although the custom seems less common nowadays, either for fear of being robbed or simply to distinguish between austerity and pomp, women often wear costume jewelry made from semi-precious stones to benefit from their beneficial properties. They also wear beautiful seeds, all converted into charming necklaces, or sometimes plastic junk, depending on the capacity of the purse, which is not always generous when life is expensive. According to publisher André Exbrayat, who gives us a retrospective in a book called Martinique, published in 1984, reissued in 2014 and again in 2022, we learn about the history of jewelry. "In the 17th century, jewelry was made of coral and garnet, then gold. Some masters sent their slaves to France for training, enabling them to become master goldsmiths and buy back their freedom. Necklaces can be upgraded to include links and seeds, depending on financial means. It's hard to imagine a Martiniquan woman without jewelry. Creole women have been wearing them since childhood, in all shapes and sizes, and always in gold. She's not yet walking when her ears are pierced for the famous earrings known as créoles. This custom dates back to the 17thand 18th centuries. Blacks could not own property, so they invested their wealth in jewelry. For their part, masters who wished to mark certain events - weddings, births - offered the gold beads to their closest servants, their da, or their mistresses..., which explains the irregularity and length of some necklaces. Jewelry thus has a history that is reflected in its symbolic names, or in those inspired by local flora or fauna: rigid, smooth slave necklaces and bracelets evoke links of sinister memory, convicts evoke the penal colony, and the chou necklace with its clasp is said to come from Senegal, where they are still found. Others are more light-hearted, such as the pomme cinnamon or tété négresse brooches and earrings, and the gros sirop, grain d'or, nid de guêpes necklace. At the end of the 17thcentury , a garnet quarry was being exploited on the Mandoline islet opposite Trois-Ilets. Since then, this stone has been considered a Creole jewel.
Modern jewelry inspired by flora and fauna
More and more, we're seeing a new artistic tendency to honor Martinique's fruits and fauna by reproducing with gold apple-nuts, avocados, bundles of cane, or even everyday utensils that have disappeared from modern habits, such as storm lamps, kerosene lamps, scales, coffee grinders, latanier model brooms and drums.
Mr. Alex Pinceau, aged 82, is a retired jeweler and goldsmith. His drawing teacher was the well-known painter Alexandre Bertrand, and his modeling teacher was the writer and sculptor Marie-Thérèse Julien-Lung-Fou. He took over from his father, and today the business continues into the fourth generation.
Former owner of the Onyx jewelry store, he created traditional jewelry like his father, then drawing inspiration from flora and fauna, he was a pioneer who created breadfruit leaves, breadfruit, crab traps, faggots, fishermen's bakoua, hibiscus, and in filigree the starfish as well as turtles and many others. In an even more modern vein, he has created racing yawls. So many magnificent objects, each more original than the last. Our jeweler was also invited to take part in the Paris Fair in 1989, as well as in a meeting in Cuba with a delegation of Martinican craftsmen to promote and appreciate local craftsmanship.
We used to give our children grains-choux for every birthday," he says. The family would then make them into necklaces.
Wasn't this already, without actually announcing it, insidiously instilling the patience that pays off, and at the same time teaching the recipient the art of saving money, without him or her even realizing it?
