A rectangular piece of fabric worn wrapped around the body as a skirt or dress—a garment whose simplicity of construction is matched by its extraordinary versatility, a single rectangle of cloth that contains an entire wardrobe.
The pareo originated in the islands of Polynesia, where it was the basic garment of everyday dress for both men and women. It is typically made of lightweight cotton or silk, printed with vibrant patterns inspired by tropical flora, marine life, and geometric motifs. The pareo is not sewn, cut, or tailored; it is simply a rectangle of fabric that becomes a garment through the act of wrapping.
The pareo entered Western fashion through artists such as Paul Gauguin, whose paintings of Tahitian women in pareos introduced the garment to the European imagination as a symbol of tropical sensuality. In the 1950s and 1960s, the pareo became a staple of resort wear, worn by the jet set on the beaches of the French Riviera and the Caribbean.
In contemporary fashion, the pareo is the quintessential summer garment, worn as a skirt, a dress, a top, a headscarf, a beach cover-up, or an improvised bag. It requires no fitting, accommodates any body, and takes up virtually no space in a suitcase. The pareo is the purest expression of clothing as an idea: a length of cloth that becomes a garment through the intelligence of the wearer.
