Russian costume.
Russian peasant costume renamed unchanged for almost 700 years and though nobility and urban residents adopted European style of cloth in the 18th century, peasants went on wearing bast shoes and untucked shirts. Since middle ages people believed, that the world is populated with evil spirits and cloth should protect nor only against the cold, but also from them.
Undergarment of ordinary peasants and the tsars before Peter the Great were very similar. It consisted of a shirt and pans. Shirt were usually knee-long, with embroider hem, colon and sleeves. The purpose for embroidering was not also for the beauty, also were supposed to protect the owner against evil spirits. Untucked shirts was belted with a narrow sash. Wealthy man would wore a fancy shirt over the plane one.
Shirts were made of white, red and blue fabric. The pans were wide at the waste and tinned with a string. The fancy shirt, sometimes made of silk.
Outer garment – caftan. A word of Turkish origin. A caftan reminds arrow modern, a variety of caftan was called зипун. Caftans varied in length, the classical only shows fancy boots. Становой кафтан.
In winter peasants wore sheepskin fur coats, while the nobles wore coats of sable, coats etc. Traditionally the coats were made with the fur inside, the outside was lined with silk, brocade or velvet. A fur coat – a common gift, was considered very special sigh of appreciation from the tsar. Fur coat was traditionally used on the weddings.
An important detail of men’s cloth – a belt (or a sash). Appearing on public without belt was considered as disgrace. Peasants usually wore bast shoes all year round, made of linden. Before putting those bast shoes on, man and woman wrapped their feet with a piece of a special cloth with a long string. Bast shoes were chip and comfortable and everyone could make it themselves. Urban also wore boots, well-to-do people – boots of soft leather, embroidered with pearls, nero-pointed tips, silver-taps, high kills. Traditional Russia costume is very bright, the most popular color was red (a synonym for “beautiful”). Other popular colors – azure, green, crimson, gold.
Female cloth. Russians traditionally preferred stout women. When a woman want to look good, she put on many different garments, jewelry if evaluable. Festive dress of a noble woman – 15-20 kl heavy. Because of such heavy cloth, Russian women walked slowly. Code of conduct discourage women from woreing tight-fitting cloth, that’s why woman never used belts. Women usually wore two shirts – a linen undershirt and a silk outer shirt. This shirts were wore at home – no stranger could see a women, this shirts were belted.
In the 17th century a sarafan became popular – was warn over a shirt. Head dress signal here marital status. Maiden’s head dress was like a diodem. Often decorated with embroidery, pearls or jewels. A married woman would wear a cap, that fully covered her hair. Being without head dress – great disgrace.
Woman wore jewelry – bracelets, rings. For special occasions used lots of make up – such as fard (белила) and cheek-color. Smoke black (сажа), flower, beet-root. Foreign visitors to Russia always wondered why Russian woman being so beautiful naturally make themselves ugly painting their faces regularly.