Costumes a variation on a 'uniform'

Three examples of mariachi attire.

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This is the attire. The pants have these "buttons" running down the outside of the legs; they are called botonaduras. Botonadura means buttons - a set of buttons. The modern ones do not open but at one time they did. Look at these pants and see the opening right there on both of these worn by the musicians in the background.
As you can see, the buttons that we see on the charro outfit used to open up. There used to be different types and colors of material under there, inside the buttons. Male dancers used to wear these types of pants as well. One could open the sides all the way down or only part of the leg. I have seen old drawings and paintings where just the buttons on the center part of the leg are open and one can see the material of a different fabric and color inside the openings.
But here is a photograph of the standard outfit worn by mariachis today. It includes a large hat - the sombrero, a white shirt, the moño (bow tie) and, incidentally, this one that I am wearing is an older style moño. These aren't easily accessible anymore. Part of it, the tassels are made from horse hair. But now the moños are just big bows made from wide ribbons. The moños come in all colors; they are very colorful.
The mariachi or charro outfit, called the "traje," also includes a chaqueta (short jacket) and sometimes a vest as well. The chaleco is the vest. Male mariachis also wear a large belt.
Here we see a contemporary mariachi. This is a photograph I took last year in my home town in the State of Michoacán The buttons on these mariachi pants don't open at all. They are just there as decorations. The only button that really works is the one on the front of the jacket, the clasp. The buttons also work on the vest, if the the mariachis are wearing a vest. In this photograph, one can also see the large belt, the white shirt, the bow tie - their short boots. Bow tie come in many colors. They are wearing white ones and the ones I am wearing are a black pair. What I just described is the standard mariachi attire.
This photograph shows a modern working mariachi and this one includes three trumpets. They just keep adding and adding trumpets and violins.
Let me ask you a question. If you were a mariachi and you only had enough money to have one traje made - one suit - what color would it be? Absolutely! You all got it. Black. The standard color is black because if you're a working mariachi and you go to Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City or a plaza in Guadalajara that has mariachis all day and all night that one can hire, if you go there as a mariachi then you can get jobs with any mariachi and the entire group match since all of the members will be dressed in black (and the buttons should be silver color). That's the standard.
Today, mariachi outfits come in all colors, literally. Red, purple, pink, brown - you name the color, it's out there now. Some trajes use embroidery instead of the buttons, embroidery that sometimes is made to look like buttons but of course is not. The embroidery is a little less expensive than the actual silver and gold colored buttons.
Some mariachis wear a gabán, which is a sarape draped over the left shoulder. This practice originated from the working mariachi because at night, in the mariachi region, it gets cold and they would just put these over their head to keep themselves warm. They're known in English as panchos. The working mariachis wore them because they were functional. Today, some of the show mariachis wear them now simply as decoration.
Pedro Fernandez, no relation, wears one at the beginning of his show. He is very popular Mexican singer who performed at our Tucson conference a couple of years ago. When he comes on stage, he's wearing a little cape which is actually half a gabán, and his mariachis are wearing them as well. But they are worn simply as decoration, as part of the show.
Women's mariachi attire is a version of the male traje except it has the skirt instead of the pants and no belt. Generally, female mariachis wear a skirt that is either full length or 3/4 length. This photograph is from the 1970s and you can see this young mariachi woman wearing Go-Go pants in the mariachi style, including the buttons. I have even seen mariachi mini skirts. There is a mariachi in Guadalajara, a very controversial, all female mariachi. They start their program in long traditional skirts and part way through their program, they rip the skirts off and underneath they are wearing mini skirts, tights, or mariachi hot pants.
In some restaurants in Guadalajara, the hostesses wear mariachi outfits, or at least part of the outfit, usually the white blouse and skirt. Last summer when I was in Guadalajara I went to a restaurant where the hostess was wearing a little charro mini skirt. Mariachis play in this particular restaurant every day during the lunch hours.
Cirilo Marmolejo is an important individual in the mariachi tradition because he is credited with dressing the mariachi in charro outfits. In the early 1900s, his mariachi were invited to play in Mexico City at a party of Porfirio Díaz, the then president of Mexico. He didn't want his mariachi to go in working clothes, in the traditional clothes of working men, everyday clothes, in other words. So he dressed them up in the gentleman's dress of that period from the Jalisco region. That's how we began to see the charro outfit on mariachis.
I have a photograph of my grandfather and grandmother (I wish I had included it here) of when they got married. He, incidentally, got married when he was 18 years old and in a few days, on April 8, he's going to turn 101. In any case, when he got married, he dressed in charro pants, tight with no back pockets and narrow at the bottom, just like the current mariachi pants. He also had a holster on and a gun and his little charro shirt. This was the style of dressing up in the region. Sunday going to mass clothes, men dressed like that. So, if one is going to Mexico City to visit the president of the country, if one is going to Washington, D.C. to play for the president, one doesn't just wear the clothes that one wears daily, particularly if one is of working class background, right? People dress up to go see the president.