Every mother wants her child to be the most beautiful at the carnival party. An original outfit for a girl will be a bright and elegant gypsy costume, which any mother can sew with her own hands.
How to sew a gypsy costume with your own hands?
A traditional gypsy costume involves a long and fairly wide skirt, a bright blouse, a colorful shawl and massive beads.
To sew a gypsy carnival costume you will need:
- brightly colored fabric;
- black chiffon;
- black and colored bias tape;
- wide (6 cm) elastic band for the belt;
- elastic for frill on the neckline, 2 cm wide;
- matching threads;
- scissors, sewing machine.
Skirt
1. To sew a gypsy skirt, you need to cut out two flared suns. To do this, we take two measurements - the waist circumference and the expected length of the skirt (do not forget that there will be a frill at the bottom of the skirt). We calculate the radius of the hole for the waist: R = OT/2P, where OT is the waist circumference, and P is a constant value equal to 3.14.
Example: 54 cm/(2x3.14) = 8.6 cm.
Since we need two flared suns, we divide the resulting radius by 2, i.e. 8.6 cm/2 = 4.3 cm.
Example: 4.3 cm + 70 cm = 74.3 cm.
2. We make a skirt pattern for a gypsy costume and transfer it to the fabric.
3. Then carefully, so that the fabric does not move, cut out the pattern. We should have two pieces of fabric 150 cm each. Next, we sew all parts of the skirt.
Frill
Belt
- We cut out a strip, a little longer than the waist circumference and the width of your elastic band. Sew the belt to the skirt, leaving a hole for inserting an elastic band.
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The skirt is ready! Now all that remains is to figure out how to sew a top for a gypsy costume.
As you can see, sewing a gypsy costume with your own hands is quite easy and quick; all that’s left is to complement it with a bright shawl, appropriate accessories and makeup.
Researchers consider the traditional costume of the ethnographic group of Gypsies-Kelderars to be one of the most developed and interesting variants of Gypsy clothing.
Men's traditional costume in the past consisted of embroidered and applique-decorated jackets and vests, trousers, and high boots with patterned trim. Its formation was influenced by Hungarian national clothing. The men's gypsy costume has long since lost its ethnic flavor and is no different from the modern urban costume. But many still remember men's gypsy belts, leather or woven, embroidered with beads, sometimes decorated with metal or gold plaques, boots with high tops, wide untucked shirts.
Women's clothing, on the contrary, has retained its national identity to this day. The basis of a woman's costume is the traditional Gothya skirt. It refers to unstitched forms of clothing and is made from a rectangular piece of fabric, folded at the waist. The front of the skirt is not sewn. There is a special attitude towards a woman’s skirt in gypsy culture; it is considered “unclean”. Custom did not allow wearing a skirt over the head. According to gypsies, the lower part of a woman’s body is considered unclean, so a gypsy skirt is treated as an unclean object. These ideas explain many everyday prohibitions and regulations. To avoid polluting the water, in the past a gypsy woman would carry a bucket of water on her head. If a woman stepped over dishes on the floor, the dishes were considered unclean and were thrown away. It was considered a cruel insult for a man if a woman hit him with her skirt.
A kytryntsa apron was worn over the skirt, which covered the slit of the unstitched skirt and neutralized its “uncleanness.” The cut of the apron was also quite simple - a rectangular panel folded along the waist. In a modern suit, the apron and skirt are often made of the same material.
The set with the skirt consists of a jacket, which is currently sewn in a custom style.
Traditional hairstyles and headdresses are retained by married women. After marriage, a woman twists the hair at both temples into plaits, and then braids two braids. These cords on the temples are called amboldinari. This peculiar hairstyle, as gypsy experts note, has Indian roots. Today, amboldinari can still be found among older women, but young gypsies no longer always curl their hair at the temples, but simply braid them into two braids. A diklo scarf is worn over the braids - the traditional headdress of a married woman. Before tying the scarf, its ends are twisted. Festive diklos differ from everyday ones: they are often decorated with a net or fringe of beads, embroidered with shiny threads, and in the past small gold coins were sewn onto such scarves.
Gold jewelry is considered traditional for gypsy women.
In the past, a large scarf or shawl was an addition to a woman's costume. Being a necessary part of the costume, it also performed other functions. A wide scarf could be used to make a small tent for a woman giving birth, and a large woolen scarf could be used to swaddle a newborn.
In the color scheme of the costume, preference is given to bright colors and richly ornamented color patterns. To this day, there are certain color prohibitions. A newly married woman is not allowed to wear yellow clothes until she is one year old. Black color is also considered undesirable for a woman's suit.
The traditional bride's costume was somewhat different. Previously, the traditional gypsy costume of the bride was only complemented by a wreath of white wax flowers with a veil; multi-colored ribbons and flowers made of bows were often attached to the wreath. Today, the gypsy bride, like all brides, is dressed in a white dress with a veil.
The women's costume of Moldovan gypsies continues to maintain a traditional look. Women of this particular group of gypsies can still be distinguished today by their costume from Russian gypsies and others. Until now, the traditional costume is made by the gypsies themselves, some of the things, as before, are sewn by hand. However, today only married women wear it. Girls are allowed to wear regular clothes.
Every second article about gypsies begins with a reminder of what gypsies look like: colorful skirts, monistas and scarves. Journalists, writers, artists and film directors are so confident that the gypsy costume is well known to them that they place gypsies in the same skirts in roses and flounces in medieval Europe and modern India, Napoleonic times and the era of the musketeers. Who wears roses and frills? And what do the rest of us wear?
In fact, the national gypsy costume differed from country to country and changed from era to era until it took several more or less definite forms. Basically, gypsies consider traditional clothing to be the one they last wore before they switched to something they can simply buy and wear.
What in the minds of most people is a universal folk gypsy costume began to be sewn by the nomadic gypsy women of Romania at the end of the nineteenth century. After serfdom on racial grounds was abolished in Romania and the Roma received freedom. This is a wide skirt, with flounces or, more often, without, and a spacious blouse with a collar that opens the neck, and married women also have a scarf tied in a knot at the back of the head, and a huge apron tied like another outer skirt.
Nomadic Romanian gypsies began to travel around nearby countries, and soon their style was picked up by many Eastern European gypsies. Including Russians. Perhaps our choirs resisted the new fashion for the longest time. After all, they already had an established costume: a cossack for men, a shawl over a regular dress for women (sometimes also a turban on the head from a second shawl). However, the audience wanted more brightness, exoticism, and a nomadic look, and the choir gypsies had to abandon the outfits that they had worn for generations. But, of course, not from shawls over your shoulders!
A skirt with frills and a blouse with an open neck became the basis for a pop costume. Today we see dancers in it in the Romen and Romans theaters and restaurant ensembles. No one has worn it in real life for a very long time.
It should be added that the special love for roses is not accidental: the gypsies considered the rose a gypsy among flowers.
Just a short distance from Russia to the north and west, and the gypsies already have a different traditional costume. Gypsies in Finland, like the Sami women, are paid by the government for their work with living museum exhibits if they agree to always and everywhere wear folk costume. You can't put it on once and throw it away. Their fellow tribesmen jealously watch whether you are wearing modern or traditional clothes. If you don't get paid for wearing a suit, they won't let you wear it; but if you do, you will get a scolding for an ordinary, store-bought skirt.
Finnish gypsies recognize as their national clothes the clothes they once wore in Finland. More precisely, its ceremonial version: a velvet skirt with hose, with silver braid or white lace, and a velvet jacket to go with it. Most often, the suit is made from black fabric, sometimes from dark blue, restrained green or burgundy. To walk and sit casually in such a skirt requires some skill. In the summer it is quite hot, so many people change their jacket to a lace white blouse, but in winter no one forbids throwing on a short sheepskin coat or just a down jacket.
In the Balkan countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Macedonia) and Turkey, gypsies very often wore colorful bloomers. And also bloomers with a skirt, bloomers made from a skirt and, much less often, a skirt without bloomers. The scarf was tied on the head so that one corner hung down the back. Gypsies (even Muslim women) differed from their Muslim neighbors in that they never covered their faces and, in general, their clothes were lighter, in fewer layers than their neighbors. The arms and neck could also be easily opened up to the elbow. Hair almost always showed out from under the scarf. Gypsies in Slavic countries valued local embroidered shirts.
To wear bloomers or not was a choice not related to religion. Orthodox Balkan gypsies also calmly put them on. And belly danced!
German, French, and Hungarian gypsies were distinguished by the fact that they often wore rather short skirts - not by our standards, of course, but in comparison with German and other European women. The skirt could initially be long, but as the hem frayed, it was simply torn off to make it look more decent.
Many people know the bright national costume of Spanish gypsies: polka dot skirts with frills and a long tail, blouses with puffy sleeves, and a lace shawl. True, it is usually associated only with flamenco dance... which was traditionally performed by Spanish gypsies. The national outfit also adopted this form quite late; until the second half of the nineteenth century, the Khitans dressed much simpler and more modestly. Often their clothing was limited to a skirt with a relatively short hem and a blouse that exposed the neck. But then they were called to sing and dance much less often; there was no need for a bright folk costume.
The traditional costume of English gypsies looks interesting. It is surprisingly similar to... the costume in which the English Little Red Riding Hood rides through the forest! Gypsies in England loved red capes with a hood (however, there were capes in other colors, for example, there were green ones). In addition, they constantly and everywhere walked outside the camps with baskets, selling various small things, like pictures for the wall or homemade clothespins, and they preferred to take a shortcut through the forest. Often the gypsy woman’s headdress was also brightly colored, yellow or black. Such brightness was needed so that potential buyers (and fortune-telling enthusiasts) could see the gypsy from afar.
As for the rest of the clothes, the English gypsies preferred to wear about the same as the locals, except that they could easily walk around without a jacket, wearing only a shirt on their body. When necessary, they tore off the hem of their skirts, just like their sisters on the continent.
Finally, one cannot ignore the clothes that the gypsies of Europe wore for quite a long time after leaving Byzantium. This is a combination of a shirt, a cloak over the shoulder and a turban or headband. They liked to decorate the hem of the shirt with stripes of braid. Certain details of this costume were preserved by different gypsies for a very long time - remember the turbans of Russian gypsies, for example.
Nowadays, some Romanian gypsies, Chocenari gypsies and Brazilian gypsies wear their folk costumes, variations on the same theme in frills and flowers. Only, unlike the Finnish ones, no one pays them for this, of course.
Clothing is the most important ethnographic source.
A very common point of view is that the gypsy folk costume of women has always been bright and complemented by monists. A number of authors admit that the cut of clothing was influenced by different cultures, but in general, according to them, elements of the ancient Indian style have survived to this day. This costume complex supposedly included a wide colorful skirt for women and a vest for men.1
This view is in all respects incorrect. Ethnographers have already proven that ancient gypsy clothing had nothing in common with the one that exists now.
There are two ways to study the gypsy costume: analysis of literary data and analysis of visual material. Both methods have already been used in science. There is a work by the Polish scientist Lech Mroz and a short article by the French researcher Vaux de Folitier. We work using the same methodology, but we use much larger material and, accordingly, have the opportunity to draw deeper conclusions. For the first time, we have compiled a comprehensive periodization and identified four stages in the development of costume. The original “Indian” stage is deliberately not considered, since literary and iconographic sources are completely absent.
Like everything else, the costume must be viewed in historical context. From this point of view, the following patterns can be traced:
The evolution of gypsy clothing.
Table 11
With regard to the original layer of material culture, it now seems possible to make only a few comments, related rather not even to costume, but to the attitude towards nudity. As already mentioned, the Gypsies have a system of taboos called "pekelimos". These taboos relate to the lower part of the female body. The practical consequence of this system of views was that gypsies were quite indifferent to bare breasts, but sought to cover their legs with at least a shabby piece of fabric. In India, women from a number of lower castes were required to walk naked to the waist.2 Surely the gypsies are not descendants of these particular castes, but without a doubt the pagan perception of nudity as a natural state affected the gypsy worldview.
“They often wear a fluffy cap, while they themselves are barely covered with a piece of linen, and their sooty chest is exposed to the whole world,” writes Grellmann in 1783.3 There is a lot of evidence of this kind, and in addition to them there are sketches and photographs, confirming the correctness of the “father of gypsy studies.”4 By the way, contrary to what modern gypsies think, the skirts of gypsy women in the old days could be very short, often knee-length. This can be seen in many of the illustrations in this publication. Undoubtedly, both the poverty of the nomads and considerations of everyday convenience had an impact here.
It was possible to isolate three more features that are a legacy of the Indian origin of the gypsies and their wanderings in the East: the way of carrying children on their backs, the manner of women walking barefoot, an exaggerated love of jewelry
These three features were common to most Roma groups.
It is customary for many eastern peoples to carry a child on their back. It is not surprising that the gypsies retained this method even when surrounded by Europeans. Their lifestyle forced them to constantly take their children with them to work, and not to part with them when moving. At the same time, the woman needed freedom of her hands. The antiquity and prevalence of this custom is confirmed by extensive visual material.
The manner of women walking barefoot is explained not only by Indian habits, but also by the distribution of activities in the family. Initially, neither men nor women had shoes (like the entire population of ancient India). Having appeared in Europe, the gypsies realized that in this region shoes were an attribute of solidity and prosperity. Men traded the products of their craft and horses, therefore, in order for the commerce to go well, they needed to show themselves as equal partners in the transaction. Hence the appearance of boots, which became an almost obligatory sign of a gypsy. Women, in turn, earned money by begging and telling fortunes. For these activities it was more profitable to go barefoot. Firstly, it was an external sign of poverty that evoked sympathy. Secondly, the barefoot fortune teller looked like an exotic daughter of a distant, hot country (according to the prevailing opinion at that time - Egypt). This worked especially well in cold European countries in winter. The gypsies themselves, having been hardened since childhood, did not experience any particular inconvenience.5
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| The custom of carrying children on your back can still be seen on Moscow's Arbat. |
Finally, the hypertrophied craving for gold and silver is explained by purely material factors. It is known that in India even the poorest families strive to have capital for a rainy day in the form of gold bracelets, earrings, rings and the like.6 Naturally, the corresponding eastern habits could not help but take hold among the gypsies, who, due to their nomadic lifestyle, were deprived of the opportunity to invest money in land and real estate. Moreover, it was inconvenient for the nomads to bury treasures, or, when leaving to earn money, to leave their only wealth in the tent - under the unreliable supervision of small children and old people. The custom of wearing gold and silver affected the mentality of the gypsies, which differs sharply from the European one. If a European, having earned a certain amount, first of all acquires a house, decent clothes, and only then puts on jewelry, then with the gypsies everything is different. Literature is replete with descriptions of barefoot gypsies dressed in rags, wearing earrings, rings and bracelets made of gold and silver. Already the Parisian chronicle of 1427 testifies that women's clothing “consisted only of a dilapidated bedspread, made of very coarse fabric and tied over the shoulder with braid or ropes, underneath there was only a wretched shirt. In short, these were the poorest creatures who had ever been in France in human memory... Most, or almost all, had both ears pierced, and in each ear there was a silver ring, or even two...”7
Three centuries later, Grelman made a surprising remark about the gypsy scale of priorities. In the winter cold, a gypsy will not buy a fur coat lined with fur, but will willingly buy a worn jacket with silver or gold braid. These jackets, with shiny buttons the size of acorns, are worn by men over dirty rags - and they walk with such arrogance as if they are the masters of the world.8
Another century and a half later, already in 1930, the Romanian professor S. Popp-Serbianu described the gypsies of his homeland as follows: “Prosperous women wear gold monistas on their chests, others wear fake necklaces and pearls. Every woman has long earrings, rings on her fingers and various kinds of bracelets on her wrists. They all go barefoot.”9
I. “Byzantine” gypsy costume. Before appearing in Western Europe, the gypsies lived for two hundred years in Byzantium. It was there that the nomads adopted the clothing that had existed since the 5th century: an undershirt with long sleeves and a cloak made of heavy fabric. As you know, this style was a development of the ancient toga.
During the Romanesque period, all of Europe experienced the influence of this fashion. Judging by the visual material, the cloak and shirt were widespread in all Western countries. However, the Gothic era introduced tight-fitting styles, and “Byzantine” fashion became a thing of the past.10
In the 15th century, when the first gypsy camps appeared in Western Europe, they looked exotic primarily because the Byzantine-Romanesque style was already “a well-forgotten old one.”
Records from Arras dating back to 1421 describe the nomads in detail. The men are dark-skinned, with thick beards and long black hair. The women wore turbans on their heads. The loose collars of their shirts almost revealed their chests. Over their shirts, the gypsies wore a blanket of wide cloth, tied over the shoulder; They wrapped babies in this cloth. Both women and children had rings in their ears. The French researcher Vaux de Folitier rightly noted that all this was very unusual. At that time, men in Western Europe shaved their beards and cut their hair short, and earrings were still unknown.11
We emphasize that the indicated elements of the costume (shirt and cloak over the shoulder) are found not only in literary sources, but also among artists of that era. We were not able to find a single painting or sketch dating back to the 15th-17th centuries that would have included such “iconic” gypsy attributes as a monista, a headscarf, or a colorful skirt with a frill. On the contrary, all authors depict a “Byzantine” cut. Here is a far from complete list of artists who painted gypsies in that era:
France: Jacques Callot, Jacob Grimmer, Georges de la Tour, Vallentin de Boulogne, Vouet Simone.
Italy: Nicolas Regnier, Filippo Napoletano, Matteo Pitocchi, Mattia Preti, Leonello Spada, Michelangelo Cerquozzi, Vincenzo Gemito, Michelangelo Caravaggio.
Germany: Weigel Christoph, Guler von Weineck.
Netherlands: David Teniers, Jan Van Goyen, Hieronimus Bosch, Gerrit Adriaensz de Heer, Ferdinand Bol, Jan Wouwermans, Abraham Govaerts, Maerten de Cock, Paul Bril, Lucas van Valckenborch, Jan Cossiers, Bartholomeus Breenbergh.12
The paintings of these artists can be considered as a reliable source, primarily because they reflect with impeccable truthfulness the costumes of nobles, peasants and townspeople - representatives of indigenous nationalities. Undoubtedly, the appearance of the “Egyptians” is reflected on the canvases, thanks to sketches from life.
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| Outfit of an "Egyptian woman" from a painting by B. Brenberg. Fragment. Mid-18th century. |
It is interesting to note that brightness and variegation, which was a distinctive feature of a gypsy’s costume at the beginning of the 20th century, were not typical in those days. The color scheme was most often dull: gray, brown, and faded blue were not uncommon. There were even black robes. In our opinion, this is explained by the high cost of bright colored fabrics, as well as the fact that gypsies wore the same clothes for a long time: they got dirty, faded in the sun, got wet in the rain, etc.13
As for fabrics with patterns, in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance only the European nobility could afford them. The ornament was embroidered by hand, and such clothes were very expensive. Cheap printed fabrics with colored patterns appeared only in the 19th century - and only then did gypsies begin to buy them for their skirts.
When it first appeared in Western Europe, both men and women wore turbans. We will not dwell on this, since gypsy headdresses are discussed separately at the end of the chapter, and in development.
The “Byzantine” cloak existed until the time when numerous anti-Gypsy laws appeared in Europe, and was gradually replaced by European dress. This does not mean, however, that he disappeared without a trace. In Russia in the 19th century, it was worn by the so-called “cloaks”, immigrants from Moldova.14
The following evidence comes from Poland in the 19th century: “Women are dressed in whatever they can find, their hair is capriciously scattered over their backs and shoulders. However, trying to preserve the national taste in their clothing, they wrap themselves in sheets, which are not sewn, but are worn in the manner of a Roman toga, wrapped over the shoulder, so that their right arm, over which the sheet is tied, remains free and uncovered.”15
However, these and similar descriptions refer only to individual relict groups (most often the eastern branch of the Gypsies). Already in the 18th century, a transition to the second stage took place - when European dress began to be worn in camps.
II. Adapted suit. The change of costume by the gypsies living in Western European countries was largely forced. In the seventeenth century, anti-Gypsy laws were adopted everywhere, and it became dangerous for the nomadic people to differ in appearance from the surrounding population. In Provence, women caught in gypsy clothing were flogged. Similar laws were passed in Portugal and Spain.16 But it was not just a matter of the legal ban on wearing a gypsy costume. Perhaps more important was the general situation in which arrest threatened men with death, and women with flogging and branding. Changes in clothing can be judged not only from paintings, but also from official papers. During arrests, descriptions of signs were compiled. Folitier cites one of these documents dating back to 1748, which talks about the arrest of four gypsy girls aged 75, 30, 20 and 14 years. The things that the arrested were wearing were the same as those of the German women: bonnet, dress, skirt, apron. The color scheme was very discreet, dominated by black, grey, white and brown. Only the girl had a reddish skirt and bodice. Two out of four even had shoes.17
The fact that in this case we are dealing specifically with mimicry is shown by the further history of the Sinti. When it became safe to appear on the streets in the 19th century, German gypsies, preserving the local silhouette, began to wear brightly colored skirts and catchy colorful scarves.18
Returning to the beginning of the transition to an “adapted” costume, we emphasize that this process was inevitable, since even in Eastern Europe, where there was no terror, clothing was strongly influenced by local traditions. Thus, we are talking only about the time period during which the gypsies moved from the so-called “Byzantine” costume to clothing more appropriate to the given situation.
Gypsy clothing shows a pattern common to all nations, noted by ethnographers: women's costume is more conservative than men's. Gypsy men switched to European dress about 50-100 years earlier, which is proven by the famous engravings of Callot, created in the 17th century. The gypsies on these graphic sheets are dressed in trousers, jackets, boots and wide-brimmed hats with feathers, while the gypsies have not yet had time to put on French dresses. They are still wearing shirts and spacious capes over their shoulders.
Assimilation processes had to take place also because the camps did not have their own weaving production and sewing of finished products. In essence, the gypsies and gypsies dressed in what they could get from the local residents. This gave rise to one 19th-century author making an apt remark: “The clothing of the gypsies is simple and fantastic; they do not have their own folk costume, but they usually cover themselves rags of the country in which they roam"19
These words, spoken more than a century ago, are, in fact, an exhaustive description of the second period. The nomadic tribe wore dresses begged from local inhabitants, or bought for next to nothing - these were rags vaguely reminiscent of the national costumes of European peoples. Thus, the relatively unified Eastern Byzantine outfit broke up into dozens of directions in which, depending on the country of residence, Slavic, French or Spanish features appeared.
The most indicative is the outfit of Russian gypsies, recorded in a sketch by the English traveler Atkinson. This artist published an album about life and costumes in Russia in 1803. In his sketch from life, the gypsies appear in kokoshniks, shower warmers and shawls. Their hair, like that of Russian women, is braided at the back and tied with a ribbon. Only the child behind him gives the picture a “gypsy” tint.
Naturally, sundresses and kokoshniks did not remain signs of Russian gypsies for long. Already in the middle of the 19th century, the kokoshnik became an anachronism even among the peasantry, and the general changes that took place in the costume of the Russian common people immediately had an impact on the gypsies. The Russian Roma ethnic group began to wear more modern village clothing. Borrowing went in all directions. Mirrors, a samovar, and Orthodox icons penetrated into everyday life, forming a “red corner” in the tent.
The same borrowing processes took place in other countries. In Poland, Serbia, Germany, Belgium we see women wearing lace-up bodice. In England - bonnets and very revealing bodices.20 Of particular interest is the book by George Borrow, who described the male and female appearance of the mid-19th century: “The woman was portly, she was thirty or forty years old. Her head was not covered with anything; long hair, parted in the middle, hung almost to the waist in two ponytails... Her arms were bare, her chest was half covered with a frivolous-looking bodice, below which there was only an underskirt made of coarse fabric - and nothing more.”
The husband was dressed more elaborately:
“A peacock feather protruded from a slightly pointed hat; over a sleeveless vest made of untanned sheepskin, he threw on a rough reddish-brown jacket; short trousers, which must have once belonged to a soldier... covered his legs to the knees; he had blue wool stockings on his legs, and huge old-fashioned buckles on his shoes.”21
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| Bouguereau. "Gypsy". 1890 |
A German author from the same period, Richard Liebig, notes the Sinti ethnic group's predilection for boots with shiny spurs. In this he saw a craving for external effects characteristic of the gypsy mentality.
The most important distinguishing feature of gypsy clothing was extreme poverty. Very expressive are the sketches from life made in the French Vosges mountains by the writer Merimee and the artist T. Schüler. There are no monistas or variegated fabrics on them. Both authors depict young barefoot gypsies in short skirts hanging in rags and simple shirts slipping off their shoulders or barely wrapped around their chests. The same lapidary simplicity is reflected in the engraving “Gypsies”, created by the French artist Manet in 1862. His gypsy guitarist is dressed in store-bought clothes and his headdress is a cap.
The visual material on the Kale gypsies is very large. The close relationship between the Spanish folk costume and the kale dress does not require proof. Short men's jackets, women's scarves wrapped crosswise around the chest, skirts with a polka dot pattern and numerous frills have become signs of Spanish gypsies.24
Of greatest interest to us is the adapted costume of the Eastern European branch of the nomadic people. Here, development also did not fall outside the law common to all groups, but it was the gypsies of Romania and Hungary who managed to synthesize, on the basis of local material culture, what is now mistakenly called traditional gypsy costume.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the clothing of nomadic gypsies, in fact, was only a more primitive copy of Vlach or Moldavian clothing. Here is how Dahl describes the young gypsy blacksmith: “He was wearing a shirt and trousers, both of which seemed to last forever, permanently, black, tattered. Instead of a belt, he wore a wide belt, decorated with copper plaques and buttons; there was no hat on his head at all, and in a coal sack lay what may once have been a blue caftan, all in rags.” 25
The blacksmith’s young wife is described by the same author in another work: “... Her clothes were the same as the others and as all Volosh and Moldavian gypsies wear: a woolen, striped skirt, the same belt the width of a palm, a scarf on her head , tied in a gypsy style, that is, hanging at one angle along the back: a shirt on the shoulders, bare feet..."26
However, some groups are already beginning to show the first signs of a “true gypsy” appearance. Thus, the painting by the Romanian painter Theodor Aman depicts an ordinary peasant outfit: a gypsy woman is dressed in a red skirt with a black pattern and a white shirt of the Romanian style; on her neck are simple red beads. At the same time, the method of tying a scarf, moving it to the back of the head and specially braided hair are the first shoots of the Kalderar style.
III. Kalderar costume and its derivatives. The Calderar costume is not just an adapted version of a European dress - it is a synthesis of all the best that existed among the western and eastern branches of the gypsies. This synthesis would have been impossible without nomadism throughout the European continent, but the history of the Kelderars developed in such a way that in the second half of the 19th century they moved from Romania and Hungary to all countries of Western Europe, and in a short time completed the process of creating a national costume. A number of extremely favorable factors of a psychological and economic nature coincided here. The gypsy craving for gold, not previously supported by material opportunities, with large earnings was realized in rich jewelry. While the gypsies roamed within Romania and Austria-Hungary, we do not see monists and silver coins woven into braids in the paintings. We do not see these expensive decorations in the first sketches made by artists during the period when the first “Hungarian immigrants” set up their camps on the outskirts of French cities. In the sixties of the 19th century, women wore ordinary beads on their necks. However, as soon as the hardworking artisans earned their first substantial sums, the women wove coins into their hair and decorated their necks with gold monists. This cannot be considered a strictly gypsy attribute, since throughout Eastern Europe it was customary to decorate hair, clothes and headscarves with coins. Moreover, Eastern European women most likely came to this fashion under Turkish influence (the Balkans were under Ottoman rule for centuries). As soon as the material opportunity presented itself, the Kelderarki decorated themselves with golden monists, which they had previously been deprived of, and in the West this was perceived as an element of a purely gypsy costume.
Monistas were part of a married woman's outfit. A girl could wear only one coin around her neck as a sign that she was betrothed. Likewise, the headscarf, curled at the sides and tied at the back, reflected marital status. The gypsy woman tied a scarf around her head and put on an apron after the wedding. The apron served primarily to protect household utensils from being soiled by the skirt (the tabu pekelimos system, which we have already mentioned). A married Calderar woman was curling her hair at her temples with a plait; these braids were called amboldinari. A braided ribbon was woven into the braids, with telari coins sewn onto it (a gypsy corruption of the word “thaler”). Apparently, this hairstyle, when braids or strands hung from women’s temples, existed for many centuries in a row. It may even be part of the Indian substrate. This detail of a woman’s hairstyle can be traced already in the earliest European sketches, and then in Callot’s graphics, a 17th-century painting by Georges de Latour, and in a German 18th-century engraving.27 Kalderarki only gave the ancient tradition a complete, expressive look.
The Kalderar skirt is an unstitched form of waist-length clothing. The skirt is split at the front, meaning it is a piece of gathered fabric with a frill at the bottom. The slit exists so that the woman does not wear the skirt over her head and, thus, does not dirty her upper body. At the stage of their migration to Western Europe, the skirts of the Kelderars were without frills. This is important to emphasize, since, in our opinion, the synthetic nature of the national gypsy costume lies in the fact that the Kotlyar camps very successfully borrowed the frill on the skirt from the Spanish gypsies of the Kale ethnic group. The visual material allows us to conclude that this borrowing occurred in the 1880s, and by the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the exceptional mobility of tinker camps, it had taken root among the Kalderarok throughout Europe. It should be noted that the borrowing was not blind. Spanish gypsies loved to sew frills in several tiers and preferred fabrics with a polka dot pattern. The Kotlyarkas liked colorful store-bought fabrics with floral patterns, and there was only one frill on their skirts (it was about a third to half the length of the skirt). A frill also appeared on the apron.
The second borrowing from Spain was the cut of the sleeves. Before leaving the Balkans, the Kelderarki wore ordinary peasant shirts with cuffs or simple straight sleeves. They saw a beautiful expanding silhouette of the Spanish gypsies. Thanks to this, in the same eighties of the 19th century, a classic women's jacket appeared in two varieties: with a sleeve up to the wrist or a shorter one - up to the elbow. This jacket was sewn from fabrics of bright colors, often not smooth, but covered with patterns. This new gypsy fashion spread back to the Balkans and Russia.
An addition to the women's outfit was a shawl. On the one hand, this was a reflection of women’s fashion of the 19th century, common to all of Europe and Russia. On the other hand, the reasons for the fascination with this detail of clothing were deeper for the gypsies. As we have already shown, throughout history, the tradition of wearing capes and bedspreads has been very strong in camps. They were used to protect themselves from the rain, they were used to wrap children in them, and they were stretched over their heads on branches during stops. Hence the huge variety of ways to wear a shawl, inaccessible to other European women. Romanian, Russian, and French women threw a scarf over their heads or shoulders. In addition to this, gypsy women wrapped a shawl around their body, tied it over their shoulder, tied it on their hips, and so on.
Kotlyarsky men's costume was no less expressive than women's. He was very beautiful and imbued with a sense of proportion. His main influence was the Hungarian national costume. Like the Hungarians, the Kalderars had jackets, vests, and trousers decorated with embroidered appliqués. High boots made of leather with patterned trim were also a tribute to Hungarian fashion. It is interesting that the Hungarian gypsies had massive silver bud buttons already at the beginning of the wave of migrations, which can be traced from the sketches of that time. The wide leather belts and headdresses are also clearly of Eastern European design. However, all of this as a whole was already exactly gypsy, thanks to the thoughtful proportionality of the details.
Additional accessories for a man's costume were a scarf, a staff and a pipe. The scarf was attached to the jacket, forming an arc in front and hanging in folds from the hip. It did not carry any functional load, and was needed only for beauty. A tall staff with a silver knob and a pipe emphasized the masculine solidity and slowness of the gypsy. However, women also smoked. The pipes were richly decorated with polished wood, bone and metal.
Thanks to the intensive migration of the Kalderars, their complex of men's and women's clothing influenced other gypsies. Many of its elements entered into use among other gypsy groups.
IV. Second adaptation. The twentieth century turned out to be hostile to any national identity. Industrial civilization destroyed almost all types of folk costumes in Europe. Naturally, the gypsy costume could not resist the global trend for long. As the first time, at first men submitted to the average European style. Instead of vests with silver buds, they wore ordinary jackets; boots gradually gave way to shoes. Already by the time of World War II, the disappearance of the male gypsy costume was a foregone conclusion. Gypsies retained their originality in clothing longer. But in our time, even the most traditional groups (Kelderari and Vlachs) cannot fully retain the achievements of previous generations. The actual transition to settled life led to the fact that it became safer to keep gold jewelry at home rather than wear it on oneself. Nobody wears silver coins in their hair anymore; gold coins have become family heirlooms at best. At weddings and celebrations of most ethnic groups, both men and women dress in modern European style. The richer the gypsies, the faster and more successfully they master new fashion trends. Even the diversity of colors, which throughout the twentieth century seemed an indispensable attribute of gypsy taste, has almost completely disappeared. Nowadays in Moscow preference is given to black suits and evening dresses. Making a forecast for the future, we are sure that in a few generations what we call traditional gypsy costume can only be seen in films and on stage.
The evolution of headdress among gypsies. For ease of understanding, we consider this topic separately. The analyzed sources allow us to trace the evolution of hats over the past five hundred years.
The oldest gypsy headdress known to us is a turban, intertwined with ribbons around the rim. Men did not wear such turbans for long - already a century after their appearance in Western Europe, they became accustomed to caps, hats and berets of local styles. It’s much more interesting to follow the transformations of women’s hats.
The first major change was the tie around the chin. At first it was just a wide strip of fabric that was tied around the head, pressing the turban on top. This happened towards the end of the 15th century.
The next stage dates back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At this time, gypsies began to wear the same thing as all the women around them: first, bedspreads made of smooth or patterned fabric, and then ordinary European caps, as well as scarves tied in a knot under the chin.
Only in the 19th century did women in Kelderar camps begin to wear kerchiefs twisted at the sides with a plait.
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So, images of clothing in painting and graphics can serve as an important ethnographic source. They make it possible to trace the migrations of Roma, even if there is no literary data. Having a pictorial series, you can not only determine whether the gypsies belong to any ethnic group, but also simultaneously study the material culture: occupation, tools, method of setting up a tent, type of cart, etc. However, we emphasize that you can use this source only after a comprehensive study of a very large amount of materials. As is the case with literary sources, it is necessary to filter out unreliable information caused by ignorance or the imagination of artists. You should be well versed in art history (to know how realistically this author reflected the surrounding reality). You need to be a specialist in the material culture of the surrounding gypsy peoples (to identify borrowings). The authors of this monograph consider themselves prepared to solve these problems due to their ethnographic and artistic education, as well as long-term professional work in these areas.
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Photo: Vera Zagorodnaya/Rusmediabank.ru
Bright and independent, cheerful and impetuous, with devilish sparkles in her eyes and freedom-loving, like the wind, mystery itself - this is exactly how the image of a gypsy appears, wandering with her camp under the clear sky. Romantic? Not that word! Carmen and Esmeralda, Aza and Yesenia - these images captivated not only men who dreamed of taking possession of the secret at least for a short moment, but also women who wanted to be like them.The gypsy style, which entered high fashion in 1976 thanks to Yves Saint Laurent, inspired by the image of the passionate Carmen, has returned to the catwalks more than once over the years. The gypsy style has influenced many designers and their collections. These are the collections of the Italian brand Fisico, and models of the Milanese designer Luisa Beccaria, the unusual gypsy style was present at the shows of the Dsquared2 brand, one of the collections of Emilio Pucci was inspired by the spirit of gypsies, the diversity of gypsy clothes left its mark on the models of Custo Barcelona and many others.
But this is a theory. Now on to practice. What should a fashionista who dreams of being like a free and mysterious gypsy have in her wardrobe?
Gipsy style or gipsy style (another name for the gypsy style) does not accept tight-fitting clothing that restricts movement.
Gypsies have always been distinguished by their colorful skirts. Skirts, characteristic of this style, are not just long, but very long, swelling even from a light breeze. They can be cut from one piece of fabric and decorated with flounces and frills, or they can combine several strips of fabric of different colors - and the stripes can be placed both vertically and horizontally. The color combination won't even matter here. The main thing is contrast!
And in general, clothes of this style are characterized by bright and cheerful colors, prints with large fantasy patterns and the compatibility of absolutely seemingly incompatible colors - not only between the fabric of the skirt, but also between the fabric of the skirt and blouse, blouse and scarf. Clothing is replete with a variety of colors and original patterns.
Photo: Elena Zaskochenko/Rusmediabank.ru
Blouse with a triangular neckline, an integral attribute of every gypsy, should also not hinder movement and fit the body. And the decoration with ruffles, frills and lace will make the image also feminine and romantic. From a classic gypsy blouse, you can move on to a loose top made of light chiffon fabrics, falling off the shoulders or held only by a thin elastic band, forming a beautiful gather along the upper edge.
Where without scarf, the main element in the gypsy style? You can't go anywhere without him! It must be present to emphasize that it belongs to the “free nomads” style. It doesn’t have to be a fringed scarf; it will also work. Throw it over your shoulders, tie it around your waist or hips, tie it around your head, or attach it to your bag. There is room for imagination here!
Photo: Branislav Ostojic/Rusmediabank.ru
Who said you need to take off your shoes? Shoes, despite the fact that gypsies are always presented barefoot, can also emphasize their belonging to the Gipsy style. Shoes can be anything, but they must be bright and full of straps, fasteners, beads, beads, etc. Although most often at fashion shows you can see the predominance of sandals and soft boots with flat soles.
A modern girl cannot do without a handbag. But even here you can come up with something original. Bag Gypsy style should be voluminous, in a patchwork style, or look like a medieval bag - a small leather belt bag. Thick fabric of a neutral color can also replace leather. Even a backpack can match the look - made from scraps of leather, a single piece of plain leather, or a combination of 2-3 colors. You can attach fringe, sew on or bugles to the bag.
A loose blouse and skirt, light sandals, a roomy bag and a scarf on the shoulders - what else can emphasize the image of a free and independent gypsy? Of course it is decorations. This is where you can't overdo it! An abundance of thin bracelets mixed with massive and bulky ones can jingle on your hands, and rings with bright stones or thin rings made of silver or copper - the most favorite metals of gypsies - can sparkle on your fingers. Long earrings sparkle in the ears, and on the neck there is an abundance of monistas (necklaces made of coins, stones or beads), multi-layered necklaces or a large number of various chains, and maybe even huge red beads. In a word, I carry everything I own with me.
Photo: Vera Zagorodnaya/Rusmediabank.ru
Do you think that putting on all the gypsy “outfits” at once is too much for you? This is not necessary: to get at least a little taste of the freedom that this style radiates, add a new element to your usual look - an original bracelet, a scarf a la Carmen...
Having chosen for yourself the image of a seductive, passionate and free gypsy, remember a few rules: do not overdo it with color, even despite all the diversity of the style; and remember your gait, which should be as light and free as the image you choose.
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