Hi, I am looking for information on St. Martin's culture. We found out that my great grandmother is a born native from St. Martin and we are doing resarch. Does st. martin wear madras like the other neighboring islands? It will be a great help if someone answered. Thanks

This is an interesting question and one that deserves an answer from maybe someone who lives on the island. I would assume that you are young and are truly interested in knowing the answer.

From what I have seen, due to the heat during the day, many of the island women wear lightweight clothing and mostly flowing lightweight dresses that are airy and cool. I rarely see any of the women wearing anything on their heads aside from maybe a wide brimmed hat that shades their faces from the burning sun.

Maybe someone can correct me on this but this is what I tend to see being worn by the island women.

Amazingly, the men tend to wear lightweight pants or Bermuda length shorts and shoes or sneakers during the day whereas vacationers are usually wearing the typical shorts and sandals.

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Life is not a child's game of follow the Leader. Instead, life is more about finding one's own purpose in life....your life's plan, and then making a positive difference on earth.

I'm not sure how to answer that. The question refers to what women used to wear many years ago . I think madras was more of a french thing but I am not sure.
I know sometimes when they have cultural dances here, the costumes that the dancers wear are often the madras.
I think the traditional Caribbean dress throughout many of the islands used to be madras but we are takings a long long time ago. I really don't know if st. Maarten women wore that or not.
As I said, my instinct is that this was very common in the french islands though.
I would like to ask the original poster if she knows what her great grandmother's name was and if she knows anything about her great grandmother's family here on the island.
If her great grandmother was from the french side, I would imagine that she very well might have worn madras.

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Barbara,

I don't know if there's a direct correlation or not but it seems to me, as many years back as I can remember going there, the dear ladies who served in the dining room of Marys Boone wore madras dresses or madras trimmed dresses and somewhere along the line I was lead to believe that was 'traditional' but as you suggest, to which side of the island I have no clue.

Respectfully,

pat

I was interested in what a Madras outfit would look like so I googled it and after sorting through pages and pages of the modern day Madras dresses, here's what I found.... and now remember, like Pat mentioned, that the waitstaff did wear these lovely dresses while serving the food at Mary's Boon. I assume that they don't anymore since I haven't been there in ages.



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Life is not a child's game of follow the Leader. Instead, life is more about finding one's own purpose in life....your life's plan, and then making a positive difference on earth.

Thank you all for your answers. My daughters great great grandmother name was Josefa Christian.

i know but i wont tell you

I have seen madras worn on lot's of islands, not just French. St. Lucia comes to mind. They still wear alot of madras there.
I asked a friend of mine in Sint Maarten, born there, and she right away said it was for "country" folk! My girlfriend lives in Cole Bay so she's city. LOL
I do know there were lot's of Scottish sailors in the caribbean back in the 1600's. Don't know if that has anything to do with madras. Then there was the Dutch West Indies company, there is madras in India of course!
Cheers
irina

Scottish sailors don't wear madras, they wear Tartan

What do they wear under their kilts???><

Next time you're down island, ask Jack T Shepard!

April 23 -30 in the usual spot.

I AM FROM THE FRENCH SIDE OF THE ISLAND. AND YES OUR CULTURAL WEAR IS THE MADRAS. NO, WE DON"T WEAR THEM ANYMORE.BUT. WE DO FOR OUR CULTURAL EVENTS LIKE CARNIVAL, ST.MARTIN DAY AND SO FORT.AND YES ST.LUCIA STILL WEARS THEM, THE ISLAND WAS ONCE OWNED BY THE FRENCH SO WAS DOMINICA.THEY STILL KEPT MOST OF THE FRENCH TRADITIONS.I DON'T KNOW YOUR GREAT GRAND BUT YOU SHOULD VISIT AND FIND YOUR HISTORY.

and this is a very old topic coming back from nowhere...

Kind Regards,
Philippe



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