BASHKIR COSTUME

BASHKIR COSTUME, a traditional ensemble combining different components of clothing, hats, footware, as well as traditional adornments. There were everyday, festive and ritual clothes. Fabrics, cloth, felt, processed animal pelts, yarns, imported silk and cotton fabrics (velvet, brocade, cotton chintz, etc) were used for manufacture of clothes. Appliquйs, embroidery and other types of decorative- applied arts were used for ornamentation. The basic everyday clothing for men and women were a long shirt or a tunic dress with straight sleeves. Pants were sewn from white, striped, red canvas or cotton fabrics, with a rectangular insert; in the cold season, narrower pants made of woolen cloth or other dense material were in use. Women dresses were one‑cut and composite, with a standup collar. A fabric bib was tied on the chest under the dress. Everyday outdoor wear included beshmets, elyans, casaquins, camzols and chekmens. Fur coats made of horse skins with mane along the sleeves and on the back, sheepskin and lambskin coats were the traditional  winter  wear. Women more often wore quilted coats. Men’s hats were made of sheep‑skin, fur, felt, and fabrics. Men’s casual head wear was tyubeteyka.

Fur hats, felt caps, broad‑brimmed and narrow‑brimmed hats were very common. Women wore kerchiefs with silk, cashmere and woolen shawls on top, and the coral kashmau (the traditional Bashkir headwear). Older women wore a white veil — tastar; young married ones — a veil with ornaments — kushyasysyk. They were worn with headbands or caps. Shoes were made of leather, sometimes in combination with cloth. The most popular footwear among both men and women were boots, kata, and saryk. The elderly wore sitek. Women’s boots with plated heels were decorated with rivets, patterned stitching, and tassels. In winter, hunters and loggers put on fur footware made of horse, cow or moose skins. Festive and wedding clothes for men and women included colour dresses, shirts decorated with embroidery and braid; yelyans, robes, waistcoats, etc, embroidered with coral and silk. Ritual clothing was a fox fur coat, covered with coloured velvet or silk, and trimmed with otter fur. The ritual headdress was a turban made of white thin fabric, wrapped over a skullcap or hat. In the 60s of the 20th century, the following territorial costume complexes were identified using the method of system mapping: south‑east., south‑west., samaro‑irgizsky, north‑west., north‑east., east. and central. The south‑east. costume complex covered mountain‑forest, south‑east. and southern raions of Bashkortostan. Traditional clothing of the settled population (Mishars, Tatars, Udmurts, etc) had a great impact on the formation of the B.c. of the north.‑west. complex (between the rivers Belaya and Ufa, Belaya and Ik). Following the changes in the social economic development of the region in the 20th century, many traditions of the B.c. were lost; since the 50s, they have been revived in the decorative and applied art of the RB.