CLOTHING SYSTEMS OF THE EXQUISITE AMBATEÑITA AND THE HAUGHTY AMBATEÑO: ARCHIVE CATALOGING FROM 1950 TO 1990

Abstract

The study of clothing systems through historical records has been scarcely treated by the academic community in Ecuador. Such situation confirms the loss of the historical link in the documentation of Ecuadorian clothing, especially in regional clothing. This article presents the first phase of the research project whose final goal is to analyze the archetypes of clothing of the exquisite ambateñita and the haughty ambateño in a time period between 1950 and 1990. The space and temporality respond to the natural catastrophe of the earthquake that occurred on August 5, 1949, which hit several cantons of the Tungurahua province, including Ambato. Temporality that marks a before and after in the formation of the ambateño archetypes, their social imagery and the respective construction of clothing systems. In this first phase of the investigative work, the objective was to catalog the visual and documentary sources that refer to the clothing systems. The methodological model of qualitative approach responds to research on design, the same one that is supported by a study of cabinet and document management with the analysis of various sources. The results of the research are concentrated on the signing and cataloging of sources, which -in a second phase of the project -will make up the Visual Archive of the Costume created as an interpretation space to maintain a historical and social memory of the Ecuadorian costume.