Related Information:
According to Joanne Pillsbury, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies, at The University of Maryland and Dumbarton Oaks:

"In the Inka empire, men wore garments known as unku. High-status unku were made of a fine tapestry fabric known as cumbi, a double-face tapestry-weave textile. Cumbi was made with llama, alpaca and vicuña wool, in addition to cotton. Cumbi was a carefully controlled commodity in the Inka empire, and an individual would be limited in the number of camelids an individual could own. The extant Inka tunics show a high degree of standardization in size and design, suggesting considerable control over production in the Inka state.

"Of the Inka tunics that survive, one of the most common designs is that of the black and white checkerboard motif that covers the body of the tunic (FM 45.1534). An inverted stepped triangle in bright red, which starts at the shoulders and extends to just above the middle of the tunic, surrounds the neck. This type of tunic may have served a military function, based on the descriptions of the early Spanish chroniclers. In particular, the Francisco de Xerez account describes the arrival of Atahualpa’s army in Cajamarca, with men dressed in livery like a chessboard.

"Unku continued to be made and worn, at least in certain contexts, in the colonial period (FM 6.3397). While in general descendants of Inka nobility assumed Hispanic dress in order to ease their incorporation into the dominant group, on certain occasions such as church festivals, Inka-style unku were worn. Relatively few technical changes were introduced in weaving shirts in the colonial period, and the differences between pre- and post-conquest unku is largely one of design."