Guatemalan Corte Textiles - The Four Embroidered Designs

While Guatemalan huipiles will always be my first love, hand woven Mayan cortes are wonderful textiles in their own right. I love turning them into pillows, throw blankets and tablecloths for an authentic vintage textile experience.

Like huipiles, cortes will identify the origin of the Mayan woman wearing them. Below I’m going to show the four regional designs that add embroidery to their cortes, making them exceptional textiles to use for home decor.

Colotenango Cortes 

This design is eclectic and avante-garde, giving off vibes of a Brooklyn art gallery with the colourful shapes and naive patterns. Colours usually range from red to dark burgundy, however I have found the occasional novel piece in a hot pink or fresh blue. The huipiles the Mayan women wear with these cortes are just as quirky in design and have a timeless appeal, a top you can wear for the next 50 years and it will always look great. 

Colotenango textiles look amazing when worn - and I do recommend acquiring at least one Colotenango huipil to wear - they also happen to work exceptionally well as bold and eclectic home decor.  

I've used them as table runners, bed throws and made multiple pillows from them. I've also seen antique sofas reupholstered in Colotenango cortes. It really is a timeless design that will add a rich textural (and historical) element to your home. 

Aguacatan Corte Textiles 

These cortes are similar to Colotenango and in the beginning I used to confuse them. However the embroidered patterns are more conventional and delicate, usually a floral and geometric design intertwined.

The most typical colour is a bold orange as show by the girls in the collage below. However if you search hard enough you can find the soft browns that usually have pretty green or blue contrasting embroidery.

My youngest Mayan vendor has also taken extremely faded orange cortes and dyed them a pretty pink as shown in the collage below. These are the rarest of all as I only know one vendor who has worked out how to do this, and the colours are beautiful.

The cotton used for both Aguacatan and Colotenango cortes is a very heavy cotton as both these regions are high in the mountains where it gets cold, and due to wear and age these textiles are butter soft.

Zunil Corte Textiles

An endless plethora of striking patterns in bold colours, these cortes are heavily embroidered and made from a stiff cotton that feels like it will never wear out. Perfect for upholstery projects, or a splash of colour at the end of your bed.

There is an almost futuristic or digital mood to these patterns, with many feeling like you're entering a vortex. These bold textiles are not for the faint hearted. 

Chichicastenango Corte Textiles

What stands out with these cortes is the excessive attention to elaborate randas. A randa is the embroidered section that covers the seam. Chichi do them better than any other region in the country. Disco coloured designs of flowers or geometric patterns over handwoven jaspè ikat take an already striking textile to new levels. 

Use these textiles as a striking table cloth, a splash of colour at the end of your bed or make a pair of elaborate pillows with the randa as the centre piece.