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Actually, the Bocksten Man is not a mummy, rather a skeleton, but fully dressed and with a generous mane of hair – looks bizarre, by the way. Why these human remains may be so interesting to fashion historians, reenactors, and people who are fond of the medieval era that the Bocksten Man became famous all over the world? Because many of his garments survived over 600 years and can be studied today. His tunic even is among the best-preserved medieval tunics in Europe. Not to mention his hood with a 90cm-long liripipe.
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Indian traditional culture estimates embroidery highly. A lot of clothes and household items are usually decorated with needlework. Just look at Indian sarees, festive sherwani, and choli blouses and you’ll notice a variety of decorative techniques used to embellish these garments. There are dozens of different embroidery techniques and stitches used in India, but these 4 types of Indian needlework are among the most popular and beautiful – phulkari, chikankari, kashida, and kantha embroidery.
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Central Asian countries take pride in their traditional footwear, and rightfully so because these shoes are so ornate, decorative, and comfy. Most people around the world know little to nothing about the folk costume of Tajikistan, including Tajik traditional shoes. It’s time to fix this, as Tajik folk footwear looks really unusual and curious. Here are the 3 most popular and offbeat Tajik folk shoes for any occasion.
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- Category: Tajikistan
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Some of you probably have already seen people dressed in medieval clothes at some historical reenactments, medieval fairs, or even in theater/movie/museum. But can you name all of the garments and tell how many of them a person has? The Middle Ages is a period when the climate was cold, synthetic fabrics not yet invented, and people dressed modestly and elegantly. So, let’s specify and describe a typical everyday look of an ordinary working woman, not wealthy, without any fancy trinkets in her attire, just a set of clothes she needs in daily life.
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Hand fans were an obligatory accessory for court ladies and wealthy women for a few centuries. And they were extremely trendy and popular. Of course, the variety of fans was huge, the fashion often changed, and fan makers had plenty of work to do, as all of the hand fans were created by hand only. What do we know about Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo fans? Let’s look at the history of hand fans in the 16th-18th century.
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- Category: Nationalclothing
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Ukrainian needlework is world famous. There is a huge variety of unique authentic patterns – floral, geometric, animal, etc. We’ve prepared several close-up photos of Ukrainian embroidery patterns seen on vintage folk clothing and ceremonial items from the 18th – early 20th century. Look at the color play, the diversity of patterns, the beauty of this traditional decoration! The older needlework designs, the more meaningful and significant they are, but even ordinary floral embroidery without any protective powers is charming enough for people to want it as embellishment for their clothes.
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- Category: Ukraine
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Portrait miniatures were extremely popular in the 16th-19th century. They helped capture the appearance of people and pass the images down the generations. Thanks to these tiny portraits, we have so much useful information on the period-accurate fashion trends. Though portrait miniatures usually only show the bust of a person, we can still see part of the upper garment, collar in detail, hairstyle, jewelry, facial hair style, headdress, trimmings of clothes, and many other wonderful details of historical costumes.
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- Category: Nationalclothing
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This folk dress is rather modern compared to other traditional outfits around the world. It appeared in the early 20th century. And the history of its invention is unusual and curious. This women’s attire invented by an outlander has found its place in the traditional clothing culture of Uganda. A gomesi or busuuti gown is bright, floor-length, and made from a large amount of fabric. Of course, such clothes mostly weren’t available to African females before the 1900s. Though, Ugandan women fell in love with these long and colorful dresses so much that they became Ugandan national costumes.
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The dresses with multiple pleats on the bodice became trendy at the end of the 1830s and remained fashionable until the mid-1850s. Such bodices are called “fan-pleated bodices”. This unique feature is a typical detail of this period’s female gowns. And it was extremely popular among the ladies of middle and upper class. We can find this design on many old photos from Europe and America. Let’s find out more about these cute piquant pleats.
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Funerary fashion is a very interesting and exciting branch of fashion history. About some trends and traditions we find out due to the old photos and paintings, but also, a great chunk of knowledge comes from the grave. Archaeologists dig out a lot of artifacts from ancient burial grounds, so they can study them and make educated assumptions as to what did people wear to the grave. Some burials have survived in such a good shape that we can create replicas of those ancient burial outfits. Like the one we’ll tell you about in this post.
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- Category: Estonia
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Not all of the historical and quasi-historical films and series offer period-accurate stage costumes, but it doesn’t mean they’re not good-looking and interesting to learn about. Take A Knight's Tale movie. It’s called “quasi-medieval”, since it is a modern adaptation rather than an accurate historical film. Thus, the costumes used in it are stylized and re-modeled medieval outfits used to hint at the Middle Ages rather than be replicas of actual medieval clothing. Still, it’s fun to analyze them, so let’s do it.
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Women of El Salvador usually wear wide flounce skirts in traditional blue and white colors as their national wear. But these are rather modern garments. If we think about older apparel worn by the local indigenous people, the traditional clothes are very different. They’re simpler, hand-woven, sewn from smaller amount of fabric, and less decorated. Still, those ancient Salvadorian garments look just as cute but are more practical. Take, for example, the traditional refajo skirt.
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- Category: El Salvador
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A few centuries ago, such accessory as a fur muff literally saved people’s fingers if not lives. There were no fancy membrane fabrics, fleece, or other modern inventions to keep people nice and warm. A muff was so handy during the cold season that even men gladly wore it in the 1600s and 1700s and considered it a fashionable accessory. Today, male muffs look rather extravagant, by far not to everyone’s taste, but at that period, it was a necessity, something that would help you avoid frostbite.
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- Category: Nationalclothing
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Children’s footwear was lovely in the early 19th century, if you ask me. The most fashionable shoes were very colorful and adorned with embroidery, cut-out designs, applique, and other decorations. Of course, every pair was handmade, which only adds to the charm. Here is a fine example of girl’s heelless pink slippers from The Met Museum. They were made in 1795-1810. This simple but graceful-looking pair of shoes was most probably worn with a white dress, so the bright pop of color was greatly appreciated by 19th-century kids.
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- Category: Nationalclothing
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