"F" is for (pineapple) Fibre. Teresa Nobre de Carvalho, Researcher, Center for the Humanities Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal)

Alampay (shawl), Pineapple fibre and silk, Philippines, National Museum Collection – IMG 7628. © National Museum Collection/Yohana Frias (NMP). These shawls dyed with organic materials are made using a kind of open-work weaving technique called rengue to create a gauze-like cloth, woven in Kalibo, Aklan using piña-seda (pineapple and silk) fibers. The first description of the pineapple – Ananas comosus – reached Europe in 1493 in the records from the voyage that took Christopher Columbus ..