Antigua pollera remains exposed at the Manuel F. Zárate Museum
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Panama, July 21, 2025. - The Manuel F. Zárate Museum, located at Guararé, exhibits one of the oldest nightclubs that exist in Panama. It's believed that this piece has about 160 years of production, was donated by the family Alvarez Díaz to Manuel Zárate and his wife Dora de Zárate, by Professor Norma Alvarez Cruz de González.
Professor González, knowing that his friends, the Zárate husbands, were passionate about national folklore, gave them this pollera, made by his great-grandmother, Manuela Díaz, from Las Tablas, who made it by hand.
In May 2015, the pollera was put on display at the Casa Museo Manuel F. Zarate de Guarararé. And it is recognized as one of the oldest in our country and has as an estimated date of production in the year 1856.
The national director of museums at the Ministry of Culture, Raúl Castro Zachrisson, commented that the pollera remains at an exhibition at the museum. "We are in the process of bringing this jewel of our nationality to be restored," she advanced us. He added that it's very important that every Panamanian know his story and be proud with our cultural manifestations.
That pollera is marked with dashboards, about a fine nansu canvas of cotton and lace knitted with crochet. It has a tiny face lace in white, divided once, as the shirt has an opening, only.
The sleeves have a dandruelite and dandruff with flowers at cross point and a work of flowers and geometrical leaves with guardas that frame them up and down. The collection of the strips is with a ball and it's exposed. The lace of his shirt are different from those of his high school, all are woven to his crochet.
Each point of marking at the high school level is about 5 x 5, a quantity of threads that takes every cross point.
The invitation to visit the museum is given at the celebration of the "National Day of pollera," this July 22, a day in honor of the typical national suit and the crafts that make it. The bill 606 passed at the National Assembly established July 22 as a day to "exalt the pollera in all its regional expressions" of Panama.
