In a crowd of barong-clad men, pick out two barongs that are exactly alike. It’s an exercise in futility. While the modern barong keeps its ancestral silhouette, it’s constantly reinventing its parts. The barong you saw yesterday isn’t the barong you’re seeing today and, more likely than not, will never be the barong you’ll see tomorrow. The variations are countless. Almost.

In a 1989 study, Maria Theresa de Vera classified the major styles of barong based on “first, the way motifs, or units of design, are arranged on particular parts of the garment; and second, the cut of the garment itself.” Her list, gathered from interviews with embroiderers in barong centers in Taal, Batangas, and Bocaue, Bulacan, contains 13 entries: “pechera,” “straight,” “executive,” “half-open,” “unbalanced,” “initials,” “scattered,” “barong tagalog,” “batok,” “covered buttons,” “handpainted,” “retrospective” and
“personalized.”

Thorough though she is, her list is far from complete. To it must be added styles originating from the garment’s wellsprings in Laguna and Iloilo, areas outside of her study. These are “traditional stripes,” “raya,” “chanepa,” “polo barong,” “barong dress,” “americana” and “guayabera.”

Note, however, that the keyword in this endeavor is “popular.” Meaning, the styles described here are classic; they have withstood the test of time.

The classic and possibly oldest barong style is the “pechera,” whose “embroidery patterns are concentrated on the chest, along both sides of the button lines, with a few motifs scattered around the body and sleeves.” As mentioned in Chapter 2, pechera comes from pecho, Spanish for “chest.” It’s short for barong lalake de pechera, the original name of the modern barong. Today’s pechera is also called half-open,” as it opens only halfway through the front. “U,” its other name, describes the band of embroidery that goes around the front opening, forming a U with rigid or soft corners from the shoulder all the way down to the space just below the last button. A variety of embroidery motifs is used here, for example, binayabas (guava), perpilado (S-shaped) and floral, such as pinuto (flowers with five or six petals). Two types of pechera are popular nowadays: pechera without sabog (scattering), or pechera without embroidery outside of the chest area, and pechera with sabog, or pechera with embroidery strewn on the chest and the sleeves.

An alternative to the typical pechera is “chanepa” (also spelled chenepa, or senepa). Also an old design, its wide band of embroidery is placed just above the hem, leaving the rest of the garment unadorned.

“Straight” is another old style that’s popular to this day. Now known as “full open, ” its embroidery, found only on the front of the shirt, consists of two parallel vertical bands. The style commonly uses simple floral and geometric shapes, together with calado (cut openwork) and shadow embroidery (stitches sewed on the wrong side of the cloth but show on the right side) on the edges.

“Executive,” like “straight,” has embroidery concentrated on the front of the shirt, but the vertical lines crawl toward the side to form two “Ls” in opposite directions. Shadow embroidery and flower motifs like binayabas, perpilado, binigas (rice grains), pinuto and sinili (chili pepper) enhance the overall design.

“Unbalanced” shows embroidery on both sides of the shirtfront running toward opposite directions. The design on the left side of the shirt goes up while the design on the right side goes down, or vice versa. Combinations of perpilado, puntorial (leaf ), inubas (grapes), sinili and kinamastilisan (scallop) are sometimes touched up with shadow embroidery and calado.

The first letters of the wearer’s full name embroidered on the upper left-hand portion of the shirtfront are the main features of “initials.” However, a company logo or an official seal may also be used. A mixture of korona (crown or wreath), perpilado, puntorial, sinili and binigas surrounds the letters or logo.

The embroidery of sabog, as the style’s name implies, is cast all over the body and sleeves of the shirt, and is usually floral. Relatively spare, it’s often combined with other designs.

“Barong Tagalog” is a union of “straight” and “Pelaez.” The embroidery motif, a mélange of binigas, pinuso (flowers with heart-shaped petals), perpilado and puntorial, forms a vertical line on either side of the shirtfront and is sprinkled on the back.

Of more recent vintage, “batok” bears embroidery on very specific areas of the shirt—the chest, the upper arm, but most especially the nape, hence its name (batok is Filipino for nape).

The motifs used are floral mixed with some geometric shapes. The embroidery is bigger and makes full use of calado.

“Covered buttons,” also a newer style, is similar to the batok in the sense that embroidery is focused on specific parts of the shirt, in this case, the collar, the cuffs and the fold covering the buttons in front of the shirt. Leaf forms make up the embroidery.

Manila designers popularized the “handpainted barong.” The design is first traced with simple stitches and then filled up on the underside with textile paint.

The “retrospective” barong is an adaptation of the 18th-century baro. Romantic in every way, it uses only the sheerest piña or jusi for its style, which features a high, rounded collar, pleated front, sleeves and back and a longer hemline. The front opening reaches down to the navel and is closed with hidden buttons or, depending on the wearer’s pocketbook, studs made from mother-of-pearl or precious stones. Cufflinks match the studs. Side slits, no longer than six inches, add to the garment’s impression of lightness. On the front the style uses hand-embroidered motifs of flowers, fruits or stars, but with utmost restraint so as not to distract from its understated elegance.