9 tips to be a pefect flamenca

Nine tips to be the perfect Flamenca

by Olga Herrera.  Loosely translated by yours truly.
Article published on 2013 before Seville's fair, written by SevillaMagazine.

Feria is here, so here are a few tips to look your best when dressing for Feria. Lets review the check list for errors, luckily not made too often, but still some women happen to make during feria...

Every year Seville (although around here we can say Jerez) turns into a a big runway show at the feria grounds.  To sit in a caseta and enjoy the view hour after hour, of the coming and going of ladies in their feria dresses, is something of beauty.  However, every once in a while, a few ladies with a  smorgasbord of fashion, disrupt the view. It is obvious that she is lacking the basics of "how to wear and dress flamenca".  That is why the author proposes a guideline of what to avoid, in order to become the perfect Flamenca.

1- A woman should always wear heels. I'm not giving you a choice, says the author. I don’t care if you can barely walk to your car, grin and bare it.  Flamencas never wear flats, ballerinas or sandals, and no espadrilles either, although this is one of the lesser evils.  

Wow! look at these heels while riding
Photo credit: Lynn Neubauer

2- Wearing your mantoncillo (shawl) around your waist is UGLY. Under no concept tie your mantoncillo around your waist. It doesn't look good on any dress. Uniformed tourists do this. If you don’t want to carry it around, leave it home, or pin it to your dress with a beautiful broach.

You are not at the beach
so don't wear your shawl around your hips

3- Use the right amount of makeup. You don’t want to look like a freshly painted door, but don’t show up with just a clean washed face either.  This dress deserves a certain degree of overall prep.

4- Leave the sunglasses in the car. Only Martirio (famous singer that dresses flamenca and wears really dark sunglasses) is allowed to wear them, that is her trademark. You - have to suffer for fashion -. There is an image to keep, and you are an ambassador of Seville’s feria fashion.

5- Get a manicure. One must have nice hands, even if its just clear polish.

6- You have invested an important sum in your outfit, you have to complete it with a nice hairdo. When a woman walks by, and heads turn, it is not the make-up or the hair that we see, it is the overall product of a well groomed woman.

7- Everyone has a style, no two people are the same. That's what it is so striking at Feria. Some wear simple ruffles, others wear bright colors, but please, do not wear your black practice skirt, with a black top, and a shawl around the neck, or worse, don't complete the look with a red bolero hat. Feria is not a dance academy, and it is a dead give away you are not local, seriously, not even from the surrounding towns!

8- Leave Hybrids to the cars. Either you decide to fully dress in flamenca style or not. Do not dress in pants, and wear a shawl and a flower. This is in bad taste. 

9- Lastly, a remainder, please, when posing for photographs with your outfit, remember - elegance is key - stand straight, and pose like you mean it. But most of all, have fun in Feria, it is all up to you.