Cuba’s traditional ‘guayabera’ shirt on the way to global icon status

A museum in the Cuban town of Sancti Spiritus is hoping to make the cotton ‘guayabera’ shirt just as internationally famous as cigars, rum and palm trees.

Perfect for Cuba’s tropical climate, the light cotton shirt known as the guayabera is comfortable, cool, and a national symbol.

A three century-old tradition

Sixty-two-year-old Fidel Diaz Gutierrez sews guayaberas by hand, one by one on an old Singer machine.

“The pleats are the ones that take the most work because you have to make them one by one, and you mould them with your fingernail,” he says.

His workshop is…