Crazy about the Guayabera shirt
You’ve
probably seen the guayabera shirt. It’s worn untucked and has either two or four pockets and vertical stripes of pleats front and back. It’s made of cotton, linen or silk and is popular in warm climates. We certainly qualify for that distinction in Texas this year. When I was a student at Monterrey Tec years ago I bought my first one. It was made of cotton. Then I bought one of linen that was a little dressier. Then I bought a long sleeved one with polka dots to wear in cooler weather. It’s a neat shirt. Some call it camisa de Yucatan (Yucatan shirt).
The person in Texas who knows about the shirt is Caroline Matthews of San Antonio. She has stores in San Antonio and Houston that sell guayaberas. Her stores are called Dos Carolinas, so named because an earlier partner was named Carol. She makes them for customers all over the western hemisphere.
“It’s a Spanish-inspired style,” says Caroline. “Everywhere the Spaniards invaded a new world there is an example of the shirt, although they’re different in each country.”
She grew up in Alpine where her grandfather had a soft drink business. “My dad’s father bought the first Dr. Pepper franchise and took it to Alpine, the first one outside the city of Waco. My other grandfather had a small country store. My family is all about entrepreneurs and that kind of thing so it’s in my blood stream.”
After graduating from Texas Tech she went to work for Sears.
“I was an executive trainee. My first position was in men’s shirts. So it was destined from the very beginning.”
She started her shirt business 37 years ago.
“I think I picked the right time. The world is becoming more and more casual and we do a casual shirt that happens to be a dressy version of casual.
So you can wear a casual shirt and yet look dressed enough to go in any restaurant you want to walk into. Or you can wear it on cruises and feel comfortable that you’re dressed enough to look good. I think they’re becoming more and more popular and the reason I say that is more and more eighteen-year-old boys are wanting my shirt. Any man knows that what you’re wearing when you’re eighteen is what you’re wearing when you’re eighty.”
She’ll make you a shirt the way you like it.
“About forty-five percent of our business is custom. You pick the style you want, the fabric, the color, the design and we make it to your measurements. We make them for women in a shirt or a dress. We do specialty pockets for men to carry their cigars or phones.”
She has forty employees, saying she tries to hire people like herself.
She has many repeat customers.
Many of them collect her shirts. Some have fifty of them.