Estonia traditional costumes (0)

Estonia traditional costumes
In Estonia traditional costume denotes mainly the festive peasant dress of the 19th century, which in its time referred besides social status also to national background, as the ruling class were mainly German at the time. The former peasant costume of regional variation has become today a national symbol and has turned due to its altered function into a national dress.
Estonian country folk produced their clothing mainly from home-spun woollen or linen fabric : shirts and married women 's head-wear was mostly made from linen, while various outer garments , gloves, stockings and socks, were made from wool . The majority of the clothes remained undyed for a long time: linen garments were bleached white, while woollen outer garments were mainly sheep- brown or black . The wool for making skirts was dyed with herbal dyes. The bedstraw root was particularly widely used to produce red colouring. Indigo was the first dye to be widely bought during the 18th century.
Today Estonian traditional costume is the most spectacularly exposed at “laulupidu”, the national song festival , both on the stage and among the audience .
Local differences were noticed by the first ethnographers describing Estonians. The main regions fall into South , North , and West Estonia, and the islands as a separate group, reflecting ancient tribal peculiarities.

South Estonia

This region is the most conservative in dress. Maidens in Southern Estonia bound their hair with a ribbon plaited from colourful pieces of cloth or woollen yarns. Instead of a skirt, the Setu women wore a garment resembling the Russian sarafan. Setu women were extremely fond of silver ornaments: on their chest they wore a conical brooch, in addition to various silver chains. Traditionally, the large setu brooch was only worn by women of child -bearing age; nowadays older women, too, use it as a decoration.
The men of the southeast wore their shirts loosely on their pants with a belt , similar to the Russian tradition.
North Estonia
This region was relatively unified and prone to modernisation. Here people were first to adopt fashionable elements , like breeches and coat suit for men, vertically striped skirts for women, and the indigo colour of fabric.
Following the fashion of caps among people of higher social standing, which was also quite common in Estonian towns, the peasant women in the vicinity of Tallinn started to wear pot-caps in the second half of the 18th century. The most characteristic feature of Northern Estonian folk costumes was a short loose long-sleeved midriff blouse over a sleeveless shirt .
Northern Estonian maidens adorned their heads with chaplets. These were bands made either from cardboard or wood shavings, covered with coloured silk or woollen cloth and decorated with spangles and tinsel. The girls wore multicoloured silk ribbons at the nape.
West Estonia
This region shows similar features to the north and south. Sleeves were worn only on Kihnu island , in other areas white shirts were covered by jackets and waistcoats, shawls were thrown on the shoulders; skirts were striped and pleated.
After the middle of the 19th century, women in Estonia, mainly in the western regions, also began to wear checked skirts.
Men suits were similar to the North Estonian ones , in southern areas the colour was natural brown, in contrast to the northern indigo.

The islands

Traditional dress varied in this region in each island, on Saaremaa in every parish. There were many similarities with Swedish costumes.
In Saaremaa, the everyday item of head-wear for women was the stocking cap. According to custom, married women wore the stocking of their cap on the right shoulder, maidens on their left .
In Hiiumaa women wore sleeves, in Saaremaa shirts and waistcoats; in Muhu the formerly popular sleeves persisted only as elements of bridal costume by the 19th century. Women headdress varied from linen cloth to shaped caps, and fur or woollen winter hats. Overcoats and mens suits were of natural brown or black, or grey .