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05/01/04 |
     
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Russian fashion is found throughout the literature of that same century.
When reading books I would wonder what the women were wearing in
certain situations. Such as the ball room scenes in Lermontov's
Hero of Our Time. Also a good book to use along with this web
site is Fathers and Sons by Turgenev. There are many
peasants in this book which provide a distinction between the two
classes and their individual clothing.
Most of the clothing popular in Russia in this period was the peasant clothing. This is due to the fact that most Russian's of this time were members of the peasant class. Therefore most of the cloth was homespun mostly made of linen and wool.
The upper class used fabrics such as silk with real silver or gold thread! All women out of modesty wore long sleeved garments. These sleeves were wide and puffed out.
Women that were married dressed differently than single women. Married women would wear a sarafan (south) or a ponyova over their long sleeved undergarment. These would resemble a modern day apron.
Another interesting difference between married and single women was that married women had to cover their hair because it was to tempting for the men!
There various outer garments were elaborate in decoration which depended on the different regions. When the cloth was dyed the most fashionable colors were red or blue.
The shoes are simple, made of leather or felt and were heelless or sometimes even wood.
The male peasant clothing, however was very muted. It consisted of a long white blouse belted with a colored cloth. The edges of the shirt were decorated and tall boots were worn with the cloth pants tucked into them. Because of the harshness of the Russian winter outer clothing is always a must. For the peasant this meant capes, light ones were worn even in the summer.
Headdresses were also uniquely important to the Russian peasant women. There were two types. The Kokochniki covered most of the entire head and was elaboratly decorated, the povoinik was smaller and covered just some of the hair. The married women of course would wear the kokochniki.
The upper class wore more European style clothing with the fancy court dresses made of silk or velvet and richly embroidered. These were introduced to Russian culture after Peter the Great They even had special dresses made for holidays.
Of course Russia is so expansive that it does not just consist of the differences between the north and the south. In the far south the influence of Mongolia and Asia could be seen, farther north and west the influence of European dress could be seen very dramatically in the clothing of the upper classes.
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This site was last updated 05/01/04
Peasant
dress of wool.
Upper
class dress of silk.
Single
women's head covering.
Married
women's.
European
style dress.
Mongolian
style dress.