ANNA MARIE GALEA sits down with LUKE AZZOPARDI to discuss his interest and fascination with the għonnella which lead to his most recent publication and a series of contemporary yet tradition-inspired garments.
Fetishised by travel writers across centuries, the mysteries surrounding the għonnella remain as shrouded as the women who wore it. Through his book Għonnella: Deconstructing the Garment published by Midsea Books, renowned designer Luke Azzopardi does not seek to give a final solution to the black silk folds that served to lend an identity to a nation, but rather, he uses his gorgeous book as a springboard for others to dive in, and form their own ideas.
So, what first put Azzopardi on the għonnella’s path? “I’ve been interested in the history of the għonnella since I can remember. I wanted to know about its historical significance and what it meant anthropologically and symbolically. Even though the għonnella appears to have been worn for hundreds of years, it has only been touched upon briefly by writers and historians. So far, we have nothing canonical on the garment.
When researching Maltese clothing, I would always think: why has so much been left to speculation and oral tradition?”
Speaking about how important it is for designers to have historical and costume references to work with when designing, Azzopardi is pensive about the far-reaching meaning of not having any records to refer to: “History gives identity, and if there is no history, then how can an identity be formed? Cristóbal Balenciaga always referenced flamenco in his collections, Alexander McQueen always went back to his Scottish roots with plaid, and Vivienne Westwood is nothing if not an ambassador of cool Britannia. They could all be great because they always had a reference point. Ultimately, couturiers deal with storytelling, and you need a beginning. There is this huge lacuna in Malta because we simply have next to nothing to reference except cheap folklore designs and nothing related to the meaning of the garments. Even when it comes to how long it would take to produce an għonnella, we can only speculate.”
So, what do we know for sure? “We know that the seamstresses that worked on għenienel specialised in their field. Their sole job was to make these stiff, structural pieces, and they dedicated all their time to it. There is no actual data about the process of making an għonnella, but we do know that to get that rigid, dome effect, glue, boning, paper, and cardboard were bound to fabric, pleats were hammered down by what I suspect was heavy machinery, and then everything was stitched together. This must have taken hours, which explains why people only had one or two. Given all the different things that went into producing it, this wasn’t something you could just throw in the wash, which is probably why the vast majority of għenienel were made in black. The material favoured was corded silk because it has a slight sheen and hides dust very well.”
What Azzopardi’s relentless research did uncover was that the għonnella did eventually come in more colours than black: “The white għonnella that was allegedly worn at weddings seems to have been a figment of someone’s overactive imagination as there is no proof of its existence. However, villages like Għarb in Gozo and Ħaż-Żebbuġ had their own variations. The għenienel in Għarb, for example, had a cardinal pink stripe on the inside that only they could enjoy, and the ones in Ħaż-Żebbuġ were navy blue with a woven floral design.”
Using the little information available, Azzopardi was able to make and photograph 22 different variations for the publication, which was a journey in itself: “Some of the pieces made were actual copies, and others were more artistic. When we made an għonnella from scratch using modern sewing machines and techniques after studying an original one, it took five people five days to finish it. It’s so hard to find għenienel intact because, till the late Victorian era, black dyes were being used that would literally eat away at the fabric. I also made reconstructions of what I thought the għonnella would have looked like in periods where we don’t have data. The research instructed the roads I took to create pieces for the book. I feel like we have put together a quasi-fictional book where we have been given the space to fill in the blanks.”
Ultimately, Luke’s narrative does not revolve around getting to the bottom of the għonnella mystery but instead playfully pulls at its whalebone structure to form something new:
“The għonnella is not just part of the trappings of the past. It was made to be worn and reimagined in new ways. It is present in our memories, but we must also make space for its future. Every single piece of information that we gather is important: it’s only through this that we can keep our unique identity alive. We are all called to be our past’s custodians.”
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARIA GRECH
