RESEARCH DATA:

The Kalinga skirt, generally known as the kain, in this collection is called the witawitan, a wrap-around skirt that primarily features hanging mother-of-pearl platelets as embellishments (San Agustin, 2007). It predominantly features stripes in red, with additional blue and white stripes. The white stripes are narrow lines that outline the thicker bands of blue and red. Bands of continuous diamonds and triangles in red and yellow are embroidered onto the textile’s joineries, adding texture to the otherwise untextured base weave.
According to San Agustin (2007), the process of adding embroidered joinery as one of the finishing touches is why the skirt is also called dinoble, a term referring to the double process of weaving and embroidery used in this type of skirt. The short ends, or warp edges, of the skirt are woven using the supplementary weft technique, which produces embossed bands in blue, red, and yellow patterns. After the supplementary weft bands, the warp edges are hemmed to prevent the weft threads from unraveling.
The final process in making this particular skirt is the addition of the witawit, or rows of trapezoidal or rhombohedral mother-of-pearl platelets (San Agustin, 2007). These platelets are suspended by tiny red and yellow beads called singat (San Agustin, 2007) — and in some cases, like on this textile, red, white, and blue beads.