Traditional folk women's clothing of Western Volyn

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to do the research on the complexes of women's clothing in Western Volyn at the end of the 19th and the mid-20th centuries, to characterize the fabric, types of cut and decoration, and to determine their local features. The Methodology of the Research. In the research there have been used a number of general scientific and special methods: a typological analysis, comparative and historical, statistical, structural and functional methods, field studies, as well as a direct observation method. The scientific novelty consists in the fact that for the first time in the article there have been collected and systematized the materials from archival, published, expeditionary and museum sources regarding the traditional clothing of Western Volyn of the end of the 19th – mid-20th centuries; its local features have been determined; new terminology has been introduced into scientific circulation; the geographical boundaries of certain phenomena distribution have been specified. The Conclusion. The folk clothing of Western Volyn, despite transformation and modification that took place at the end of the 19th century – at the beginning 20th century, retained its special flavour. One of the defining features of the clothes in the region under analysis is the colour of embroidery, namely black. The tradition of black-embroidered shirts covers Sokal, Ivanychiv, Volodymyr-Volynsky and Horokhiv districts of Volyn region, as well as a significant part of Hrubeszów Povit of Lublin Voivodeship of the Republic of Poland, which indicates the inexpediency of using the names “Sokalski” and “Nadbuzhanski”. One more local feature is long folding collars on women's shirts. As for women's waist clothing, the most characteristic were skirts sewn from a striped cloth in narrow blue-white longitudinal and transverse stripes, under a local name – “valyvka”. In Western Volyn waistbands were in the form of striped narrow edges. In the first half of the 20th century, among women's chest clothing, in addition to “corsets”, “staniky” and “shnurovytsi” (laces), “kamizelky” (vests) were spread. Among women's outerwear, it is worth noting samples that arose under the influence of an urban fashion – “syvaky”, “kosachky”, “sachky”, “pinzhaky”.