Cool weather and cool clothes fit together as perfectly as cocoa and whip cream, hamburgers and french fries, and chips and dips! With season breezes and nippy days and nights, ponchos and capes provide a comfort to the wearer that feels just right!
A poncho is an outer garment designed to keep the body warm and to help keep one dry in the rain. A true poncho is a single sheet of fabric, with an opening in the center for the head, and sometimes there is a piece of material that covers the head (hood). The poncho falls over your shoulders, there are no closures and no buttons, and no slits to put your arms through. A cape, on the other hand, usually buttons or unbuttons up the front, has two slits on the sides where the arms go through, and may or may not have a hood.
Ponchos are popular and capes are cool!
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With ponchos, your arms remain underneath the entire fabric, but since the material is wide and roomy, you move freely. The cape generally fits a bit closer to the body and your arms are exposed for easy movement.
Drape yourself into marvelous magnificence when you are covered in a poncho or a cape!
Poncho Fun Fact: Ponchos have been used by the Native American people of the Andes since pre-Hispanic times and are now considered typical Southern American garments.Â
Ponchos and capes are typically sleeveless cloaks, so to speak.Â
The poncho was one of the typical clothes of the Paracas, a Peruvian, Pre-Inca Culture around 500 B.C. Â
The poncho is a garment known around the world, and also referred to as the:
- Chamanto (central Chile)
- Jorongo (large and full-length poncho)
- Gaban (Michoacan, Mexico)
- Ruana (Colombia and Venezuela)
- Zarape or Sarape (Coahuila, North-Eastern Mexico)
- Poncho Chilote (Chiloe Archipelago)
Alternative ponchos are now designed as fashion items. Ponchos are often made of wool and heavier materials, as well as crocheted and knitted, yet many ponchos and capes worn today are made to be breathable and comfortable, as opposed to protecting one from the elements of wind and rain!
Make a high fashion statement in a poncho or a cape that is lovely and lightweight! You are such a precious fashion plate!
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Poncho Fun Fact: The poncho was first used on a regular basis in the 1850s for irregular United States military forces operating on the U.S. Western Plains. These early ponchos were made of gutta percha muslin, a latex-coated, waterproof cloth (Indian rubber). These ponchos were officially adopted during the American Civil War, both as rain clothing and as a ground sheet for sleeping.
Today, you can start your own fashion war when you don yourself in the delicious dud known as a poncho or a cape!
Poncho and Cape Tip: Ponchos and capes look exceptionally cute and stylish when they are worn with knee high or thigh-high boots! Modern, vogue and sexy! Made to look like a mynx!
Push your way into eye-popping apparel decked out in a pulsating poncho or a chic cape!
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Show off your glamour girl grrrrrr walking confidently in a fun, festive, decorative poncho or cape!
Are you attending a party or a celebratory event? How about making an entrance in a colorful, flowing, pretty poncho!
Poncho Sidebar: We used to have a dog named Poncho, but one day he ran away and we have never seen him since, although we searched for him for days, weeks, months! We never found our dear, large dog that was Poncho. I try not to take his leaving personally!
Maybe I’ll go buy me a new poncho in honor of the disappearing pooch!
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Author Nancy Mangano is the author of two novels, A Passion for Prying and Murder Can Be Messy. Nancy has blended her interest in investigatory work along with her lifelong fashion fetish. Visit Nancy on her author website www.nancymangano.com, her author/fashion/style blog www.passionforprying.wordpress.com, Twitter @nancymangano and her author “like” Facebook fan page Nancy Mangano.
