Tops

Woven blouses and knitted T-shirts:

the fabric decides more than the style does. A blouse is woven cloth with no give, shaped by darts, pleats or a loose cut. A T-shirt is knitted jersey, as is a bodysuit, and both stretch with the body. Button-up shirts sit between the two: woven, with collar and cuffs, and the hardest of all to fit across the bust. Corset tops carry boning sewn into the seams and belong to the evening rather than the working day. Most of these get worn with something from jeans or skirts.

Shoulder seams, buttons and boning on a top that fits:

these matter more than whether the label says S or M. A side seam is cheap to take in, but a shoulder seam that drops past the shoulder bone cannot really be fixed, so check that measurement first. On a button-up, ask for the bust measured with the shirt fastened: a placket that gapes between buttons is why most shirts end up unworn. A corset top has to match both bust and waist closely, because boning does not give. Knits are the forgiving ones. A T-shirt half a size off still works; a woven blouse half a size off does not.

Yellowed underarms and a rippled neckband on a worn top:

those two marks age a top long before its colour goes. Light blouses pick up a yellow stain under the arms where deodorant meets sweat, and it rarely washes out. A T-shirt neckband that ripples has been stretched for good. Smocked and off-the-shoulder tops rely on elastic that slackens over many washes, and corset boning can wear through its channel at the hem. Viscose shrinks if it has been washed hot, so ask. When you meet, hold thin fabric up to daylight: no photo shows how sheer it is.

The Guna mola blouse, sewn as a pair of panels:

the blouse Guna women wear every day in Gunayala is built around its molas, the front and back panels, made as a matching pair and set into a yoke and sleeves. Each panel is reverse appliqué: two to seven layers of cotton stacked, cut away to show the colours beneath, every edge folded under and stitched by hand so finely it almost disappears. A whole blouse can take 60 to 80 hours of sewing. That is why its price runs the opposite way to a mall blouse. A high-street blouse is around $20 to $40 new and, once worn, has to undercut the next end-of-season markdown to sell. A medium hand-sewn mola panel on its own goes for roughly $20 to $60, and a worn mola blouse is priced on its panels, not on how fresh the cloth looks. Printed and machine-stitched copies sit beside the real thing at craft stalls in Casco Viejo. Look at a cut edge for the stacked layers, turn the panel over for folded, hand-stitched edges, and feel the cloth: real molas are cotton, copies are often polyester. Some fading on a blouse that has been worn is normal.

Photographing a blouse for a buyer who cannot try it on:

lay it flat and give the width from armpit to armpit and the length from the top of the shoulder. Shoot the front, the back, the composition label and each underarm turned inside out, all in daylight. Put the cut, brand, size and fibre in the title, because cotton, a cotton blend and viscose wear very differently. Say whether it has been through a dryer. For a mola blouse, say whether the two panels are the original pair, whether either has been unpicked or resewn, and how it has been washed. Anyone buying a mola will want to see the back of a panel in person, so meet somewhere with good light rather than in a car park at dusk.