File lives in the mountains of Shllak, in the same home where she was born. Her house itself is difficult to access, even by off road vehicle. Isolated from others in the area by a twenty minute walk, her property is gated, with an outdoor stone oven along the path to her door.

File inherited her xhubleta from her mother, who, in turn, received it from her mother. While File’s grandmother made the skirt of the xhubleta, a postava was crafted by File’s mother mad to accompany it. The xhubleta is around 200 years old, she says, and adorned with beads bought in Shkoder.

File was never able to see her mother wearing or making the xhubleta. She died when File was just six years old. With the most prominent feminine figure absent in her life, File has not worn or made a xhubleta for herself. She knows her grandmother wore a xhubleta everyday, including this one, and that her mother wore this xhubleta for special occasions. Because of this, File’s connection to the xhubleta is removed by a generation, and she does not recall seeing xhubletas worn in her lifetime.

Reflecting on the significance of the patterns on her family’s xhubleta, File says “they are just flowers, like when a painter paints a flower.” She says that while xhubletas are beautiful, she would not have liked to wear it in everyday life due to its weight and bulk.

She believes that xhubletas and cakcir are an important part of Albanian traditions, which should be housed in museums where there are resources to preserve them well.