Andorra Women's Traditional Clothing

One of the most iconic elements of women's traditional clothing in Andorra is the "Montera," a distinctive headscarf or shawl worn as a head covering.

Apart from the Montera, Andorran women traditionally wear a "Casaca," a fitted jacket or bodice worn over a white blouse or shirt.

My first thought was "what the hell?" because this doesn't look like Andorran traditional clothes AT ALL. In fact, nothing in this image reminds me of Andorra except for the fact that there are mountains. I was thinking "maybe they made a mistake and meant to write Austrian?" but then-

There it is. Of course this is an AI-generated image. And it's lying to you.

Let's take a look at this image, part by part:

And the caption of the post I'm assuming is also AI-generated, since it's false. It says that one of the most iconic elements of Andorran clothes is something called a "montera" which is a "headscarf used as a hair covering". The word "montera" doesn't exist in Catalan (Andorra's language), and I have made sure to check a dialectology and regionalisms dictionary in case it was a highly-localized term that I had never heard, but nope. It's only a word in Spanish, which is not the language from Andorra. The only similar word I've been able to fins is a "muntera", which a word from the 17th-19th centuries meaning a kind of hat with a very wide brim, which doesn't match the post's explanation. In any case, you might have meant "manteleta" (the shawl over the shoulders, which btw the women in the AI photo are not wearing). But it's not a head covering, the typical head covering is a fishnet (called ret or gandalla), though it's true that peasant women back in the day would often cover their hair with a kerchief, it hasn't become part of the "national costume" which is more based on the clothes for important days.

The other element mentioned in the caption "cassaca, a fitted jacket or bodice" is not true either. Cassaca is a misspelled version of the word "casaca", which simply means "justacorps" or "dress coat" (the typical 18th century male coat).

Andorran traditional clothes look the same as the traditional clothes of Catalunya Vella (Northern half of Catalonia). Like this:

You can see the elements very clearly in stylized illustrations like these:

Notice the iconic elements of Andorran/Catalan clothing: the fishnet around the hair, the simple shirt with a shawl folded in half to be worn over the shoulders in a triangular shape, a skirt with a pattern (most often, floral pattern) with a short apron over it, fishnet gloves that don't cover the fingers, and either the espardenyes shoes (made with laces, 1st and 2nd photo and the stamp) or in the case of upper class clothes they can be closed shoes (3rd photo). For formal occasions or upper class clothing, they would add a chocker collar. You can see all of these elements in the photos.

For more photos of traditional clothes from all around the Catalan Countries for different occasions, you can check out this post. I also talked about it here.

To conclude, I don't doubt OP did this with good intentions, but we shouldn't trust AI for information, we don't even know where it's getting the information from. For example, if you search "Andorran traditional dress" in Google Images, most of the results it gives you are actually the Portuguese traditional clothes. If you click on the links where those images come from, you can see that Google took them from newspapers articles about a festival of Portuguese culture that was celebrated in Andorra. You can check the context of that photo and understand that that's not what you were looking for. But with AI you can't do that, because it doesn't tell you where it's getting each element from.

In the case of this AI-generated image where nothing looks Andorran, my guess would be that OP typed "Andorra women's traditional clothing" and the AI generated an image of "women" (where the women that are over-represented in its database are young, thin, white, blonde, from Central or Northern European roots, fitting the current 21st century beauty standards and work like plucked eyebrows, shaving the natural body and facial hair, etc) + "women's traditional clothing" (from anywhere in the world, and clearly it took a Central or Northern European one, or the mix of them that American so-called traditionalists who fetishize a Europe that they don't know anything about like) + "Andorra" (which means it added mountains in the background). So in the end, there aren't any Andorran traditional clothing elements.

The problem with making these and not checking at all whether they're correct before sharing them (I'm quite sure OP didn't bother checking at all considering that the image and the text already don't match; where is the headscarf?) is that we are sharing lies pretending they are information, and now this image might show up in search results for "Andorran women's traditional clothes", feeding into this lie. Cultures that aren't known about around the world (often as a result of historical discrimination, like our case) will be very vulnerable to this, because there already isn't that much content about us online, so if we now poison it with AI, it will end up falsifying the results.

So, people, be careful with how you use these new technologies, be ethical and don't spread anything you haven't checked is true.

Yesterday was Sant Jordi day, here where I live (Barcelona), a festive day full of books & roses. Here a pic of the legend. Enjoy!

Happy Sant Jordi day!🌹📚🐉

In Catalonia is celebrated by gifting books and roses, "A rose for love and a book forever" and I believe is very sweet and more people should know about it!

Hope those celebrating are covered in roses and future reading material!

Diada de Sant Jordi is one of the most important festivals in Catalonia! Today all towns and cities are filled with little stalls selling books and roses, and it is traditional to give to your loved ones one of each!

As the day of books and love, I want to celebrate it with you too!

This poem was written by the Catalan poet Miquel Martí i Pol (1929 – 2003). It was published in 1977 but it is still relevant.

My translation to English misses a lot of the beauty in the original poem, so here’s the original in Catalan:

Un pèl tard, però feliç Sant Jordi!

Diada de Sant Jordi (festivity of Saint George, the Catalan traditional day of love, where people give books and roses) in Barcelona, Catalonia, year 1993.

Photos by El Temps.

And 30 years later, diada de Sant Jordi in Barcelona, Catalonia, year 2023.

Photos by Barcelona cultura.

“A Member of the ‘Garcia Oliver Column’ leaves for the front, Barcelona 1936.”

(Libcom)