In Bolivia's scrappy highlands, proud Indigenous Cholas take the runway by storm

VIACHA, Bolivia (AP) — In the huddled markets, sprawling farms and pulsing parties of Viacha, a town southeast of Bolivia’s capital, it's typical for women to sport bowler hats, tiered skirts and fringed shawls.

What's less typical is for the fashion spotlight to turn to these outfits — worn by “Cholas,” Indigenous women from the highland Altiplano.

But late Friday in Viacha, some 22 kilometers (13 miles) from Bolivia's capital of La Paz — over 12,000 feet (3,650 meters) above sea level — awe-struck teenage boys and proud mothers throbbed the main square as the town’s dirt roadway was briefly transformed into a runway.

One by one, the girls from Viacha — mostly students between 15-25 years old — strutted down the catwalk to a surprising soundtrack of early 2000s American pop music. Street vendors hawked hot dogs and empanadas. Supporters cheered in Spanish and the Indigenous Aymaran language.

Wearing glittering shoes and brightly colored, bunched-out skirts called “polleras,” the amateur models of all heights and sizes twirled, tipped their hats and threw sultry glances at the crowd.

“Years ago, people would associate these skirts with the fields, they'd look down on us as rural peasants,” said Rogelia Canaviri, 42, who couldn't stop smiling as she watched her daughter, Carolina, stride down the runway in dangling pearl earrings, the sequins on her layer-cake red skirt catching the stage lights.

“It's something I'm proud of, to see my daughter and her friends enjoy what I've worn for work my whole life," she said, pointing to the wool shawl, velvet hat and lower-key beige pollera she had on — the same clothes, she said, she still wears to milk her cows and sell her cheese at open-air markets. Her own mother did the same.

Generations ago, the Aymara were subject to waves of conquest and dispossession, first by the Inca, then by the Spanish, who forced the Indigenous communities to abandon their traditional way of dressing and adopt the style then-popular in the court of Seville.

Legend has it that the jaunty felt bowler hat became critical to the get-up after being introduced by British railway workers in the 1920s.

Bolivia's whiter, more affluent population has used “Chola” — and its diminutive, “Cholita” — as dismissive racial epithets. But in recent decades that stigma has dissipated, with Indigenous Aymara proudly reclaiming the word and younger Bolivians rediscovering the charm of their mothers' and grandmothers' vibrant garments.

“I think the ‘Cholita’ has become something very interesting, very exciting in our current context,” said Brittany Cantuta Valeria, 21, a first-time model, her hat brimmed upward and cheeks flushed a reddish gold.

“We’re now at the point of being respected because of everything that’s been implemented, so I wear this to have fun, to show off, to go to parties and dances. I have nothing to do with working the fields.”

Most of the girls parading onstage Friday, in the show organized by the Viacha municipality, grew up during the tenure of former leftist President Evo Morales (2006-2019), the country’s first-ever Indigenous president whose championing of Bolivia's Indigenous majority earned him fervent support across the cinderblock and adobe homes of the Altiplano.

Morales instituted a new constitution, which, among other things, expanded recognition for Bolivia’s 36 ethnic groups. He promoted the teaching of Indigenous languages and boosted state funding for folkloric arts. More Chola runway shows and beauty contests cropped up, widening the reach of Bolivia's native highland culture.

But fashion fanfare was largely limited to La Paz, the seat of the government. Before Friday, the town of Viacha, like most of the other villages across these austere mountain-rimmed plains, had never taken its turn on the runway.

“I was really nervous but I realized this is the first time for all of us,” said 15-year-old Tomasa Ramirez. “I feel so pretty. Now I know it’s my dream to be a Cholita model.”

With Bolivia's economic crisis closing like a vise on families whose money has diminished in value while the cost of food has doubled, many girls said walking the show was no easy feat.

Top-notch velvet hats and shawls made from vicuña wool with silk fringes can fetch thousands of dollars. Polleras cost a few hundred dollars. Then there's the jewelry — ideally made of real gold, pearls and diamonds when worn to these kinds of formal events.

“This year there was no way I could have real ones,” said Julieta Mamani, 16, pointing to her gold-colored earrings. “I hope things will be different next year.”

Watching her 24-year-old daughter pose for selfies in her elaborate skirt, Canaviri, the dairy farmer, has another hope.

“I hope she doesn't like wearing pants,” she said of her daughter. “I tried on pants once in my life, and I felt naked. Never again.”

A woman models a creation by a local designer at a Chola fashion show, promoting the Andean style and beauty of Aymara women, in Viacha, Bolivia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

A woman models a creation by a local designer at a Chola fashion show, promoting the Andean style and beauty of Aymara women, in Viacha, Bolivia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Women model creations by a local designer at a Chola fashion show, promoting the Andean style and beauty of Aymara women, in Viacha, Bolivia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Women model creations by a local designer at a Chola fashion show, promoting the Andean style and beauty of Aymara women, in Viacha, Bolivia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Women model creations by a local designer at a Chola fashion show, promoting the Andean style and beauty of Aymara women, in Viacha, Bolivia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

A woman models a creation by a local designer at a Chola fashion show, promoting the Andean style and beauty of Aymara women, in Viacha, Bolivia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

A woman models a creation by a local designer at a Chola fashion show, promoting the Andean style and beauty of Aymara women, in Viacha, Bolivia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Costas Simitis, former prime minister of Greece and the architect of the country’s joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at age 88, state TV ERT reported.

Simitis was taken to a hospital in the city of Corinth early Sunday morning from his holiday home west of Athens, unconscious and without a pulse, the hospital’s director was quoted as saying by Greek media. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

Simitis, a co-founder of the Socialist PASOK party in 1974, eventually became the successor to the party’s founding leader, Andreas Papandreou, with whom he had an often contentious relationship that shaped the party’s nature. Simitis was a low-key pragmatist where Papandreou was a charismatic, fiery populist. He was also a committed pro-European, while Papandreou banked on strong opposition to Greece’s joining what was then the European Economic Community in the 1970s, before changing tack once he became prime minister.

When the profligate first four years of socialist rule, from 1981 to 1985, resulted in a rapidly deteriorating economy, Papandreou elevated Simitis to be finance minister and oversee a tight austerity program. Finances improved, inflation was partly tamed, but Simitis was pushed to resign in 1987 when Papandreou, eyeing an upcoming election, announced a generous wages policy, undermining the goals of the austerity program.

The socialists returned to power in 1993, but Papandreou was ailing, and he finally resigned the premiership in January 1996. A tight two rounds of voting among the socialist lawmakers unexpectedly elevated Simitis to the post of prime minister.

Simitis considered Greece’s entry into the eurozone, in January 2001, as the signature achievement of his premiership. But he also helped secure the 2004 Olympic Games for Athens and presided over a vast program of infrastructure building, including a brand new airport and two subway lines, to help host the games. He also helped Cyprus join the European Union in 2004.

His critics on the right and left did their best to denigrate his legacy, highlighting a dubious debt swap concluded after the country had joined the eurozone as an attempt to massage the debt numbers.

In the end, it was determined opposition from his own party, including trade union leaders, to pension reform in 2001 that fatally weakened Simitis’ administration. He decided to resign his party post and not contest the 2004 election, five months before the Olympics, rather than face certain defeat to the conservatives.

George Papandreou, son of the socialist party’s founder, succeeded him as party leader, and in 2008 expelled Simitis from the PASOK parliamentary group after the two men clashed over policies, including Papandreou’s proposal to hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon. Simitis left parliament in 2009, but not before issuing a prescient warning that financial mismanagement would bring the country under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund, which would impose harsh austerity. In the end, it was the IMF, jointly with the EU, that imposed a harsh regime on a bankrupt country in 2010.

Costas Simitis was born on June 23, 1936, the younger son of two politically active parents. His lawyer father Georgios was a member of the left-leaning resistance “government” during the German occupation and his mother, Fani, was an active feminist.

Simitis studied law at the University of Marburg, in Germany, in the 1950s, and economics and politics at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s. He later taught law at the University of Athens. His elder brother Spiros, who died in 2023, was a noted legal scholar in Germany, specializing in data protection.

Simitis is survived by his wife of 60 years, Daphne, and two daughters.

FILE - Greece's Prime Minister Costas Simitis declares a razor-thin victory over conservative opponents following general elections, in Athens on Monday, April 10, 2000. Costas Simitis, a Prime Minister of Greece from 1996 to 2004 and the architect of the country's joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at 88, state TV ERT reports.(AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

FILE - Greece's Prime Minister Costas Simitis declares a razor-thin victory over conservative opponents following general elections, in Athens on Monday, April 10, 2000. Costas Simitis, a Prime Minister of Greece from 1996 to 2004 and the architect of the country's joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at 88, state TV ERT reports. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)