Australia and Oceania
In many countries with hot and humid climate around the planet, men and women traditionally dress in simple rectangular wrap-around garments for comfort. There exist many different names for these “kilts”, like sarong, dhoti, pareo, saram, maʿwaz, futah, and so on, but probably the cutest word for this handy garment appeared in Polynesia – the locals call this skirt-like cloth “lava-lava”. The Oceanic peoples wear their lavalava with beach clothing, everyday outfits, business suits, and any other style of clothes.
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- Category: Oceania
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The Māori people of New Zealand historically wore a variety of cloaks, including hieke, korowai, kahu huruhuru, kahu kurīб kaitaka, and some more. Each style is different but equally cute. Māori weavers were and still are very skilled and creative. Their hand-crafted woven cloaks look gorgeous and are really functional – they protect their wearers (men, women, and kids) from harsh weather conditions and, at the same time, indicate the status of a person. Today, we’re going to talk particularly about the korowai cloak.
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- Category: New Zealand
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Australia is a very special country regarding the history, flora and fauna, culture, and traditions. And if you want to find out more about all mentioned, you definitely should visit (in person or at least via online virtual tours) one or more of Australian folk museums. Their collections show both the aboriginal Australian culture (so old and so unique) and the period of European settlers coming to this faraway land in the early 1600s and throughout the 18th-20th century. Australia is a multicultural and multiethnic country, so it’s very interesting to learn Australian clothing traditions throughout the millennia of its existence.
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- Category: Australia
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In New Zealand, there is no single official national dress, every ethnic group uses its own folk costumes and has its own clothing traditions. But among the most popular traditional outfits of New Zealand are Māori costumes. These garments, accessories, and jewelry pieces are made from local plants, animal skins, bird feathers, etc, so they’re truly unique and characterize this island country perfectly. Let’s find out how Māori folk clothes look like.
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Australian traditional culture is very different from other cultures around the world. And that’s understandable – Australian climate, flora and fauna, history, and lifestyle are truly unique. Most of the world knows too little about this one-country continent and the local traditions. One of the Australian traditional items of clothes used by the local indigenous tribes for thousands of years is a possum skin cloak that was used to protect the body, draw topographic maps, and write the story of its owner’s life.
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- Category: Australia
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