You will have spotted it in souvenir shops and in old photographs or postcards, but you may be wondering what that black head dress worn by women of yesteryear was. Looking around at today’s Maltese women dressed in the latest trends, it is difficult to imagine that only a couple of generations ago, their grandmothers would have modestly covered up with a black ghonnella or faldetta. What’s more, that cover was considered to make women mysterious and alluring.

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This hooded cloak, part-head dress part-shawl, is unique to the Maltese Islands and was used by all adult women for several centuries. It only started being relegated to the back of the wardrobe after World War II, and by the 1970s, only older members of the Maltese lay missionary movement Societas Doctrinæ Christianæ still used it. However, it used to be so popular that there were seamstresses whose sole job was to design, cut and sew the ghonnella!

Generally made of cotton or silk and most commonly in black or some other dark colour, by the 16th century wealthier households and noble women would often wear a white or brightly coloured ghonnella. 

The upper part of the ghonnella, (the part that rested on the head), was starched quite stiffly and stretched over a broad, rounded frame formed by a board, cane or whalebone. It was not the most comfortable accessory (as I found out when I once spent a morning wearing the costume as part of a cultural event). The lower part of the ghonnella hung loosely down to the middle of the calves, and a woman would wear it holding one or both sides clasped in her right hand. 

Ghonella as fashion statement?

So iconic was the ghonnella that when celebrated fashion photographer Helmut Newton was commissioned by the German magazine Constanze Mode to do a shoot in Malta in 1962, he dressed the models in an ghonnella over their bathing suits. 

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Origins

There are several theories of how the ghonnella came about. Often described as a “western garment worn in an eastern fashion” the ghonnella may have been inherited from a group of Italian women who wore it as a sign of mourning in 1224. This group of women from Celano in the Abruzzi region of Italy were expelled to Sicily and then to Malta by Enrico de Morra, acting on the orders of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, following the massacre of their husbands. Others believe the ghonnella was a variation of the eastern veil which would date the fashion to the Arab occupation of Malta (869-1127 AD). Or, it may have been an adaptation of the Spanish mantilla, in which case the trend would date back to the Spanish rule over Malta (1283-1530). Popular legend has it that poor country girls who could not afford a shawl to cover their heads in church would throw a spare skirt over themselves which eventually evolved into the ghonnella.

Whatever the true origins, one thing was certain: the ghonnella was a fashion statement that endured for centuries, and was proudly worn and greatly admired. So much so, that Victorian illustrator William Henry Bartlett described it in 1851 as “a costume of which it may be said that it renders even the ugly attractive, while the pretty become positively irresistible.”