Existing comment:
French Colonial Dress in Martinique and Guadeloupe:
In the 1700s and 1800s dress codes in much of the Caribbean permitted only whites to wear hats. So free women of color fashioned elaborate headdresses out of madras cloth and wore jewelry according to their class and means. These modern versions of a madras headdress and Tete Negresse earrings are from the island of Guadaloupe. |