Matador Dress

A matador is usually distinguished from his assistants by his satin traje de luces (suit of lights) which is generally decorated in gold. Assistants tend to wear suits decorated in silver. A matator's suit is hand-made, taking six people a month to create and costing from 1.500 EUR to 2.400 EUR, the whole outfit usually costs over EUR 3.000.

The most popular colours are red, black, green, blue and white. Yellow is never worn, even by spectators as it is considered to be unlucky and toreros are highly superstitious. The suit is worn with a white shirt, narrow black tie, a red, green or black sash knotted at the waist, pink, knee-high stockings, black ballet-style slippers and a black astrakhan which is a kind of two cornered hat.

One final adornment is the pig tail which denotes a matador and is clipped to the back of the head and symbolically cut in the ring when the matador retires). The matador's cape is worn only in the parade before a fight commences and then hung on the fence in front of a friend or distinguished spectator.

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Bullfighters from history

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