Russia

Sarafan

Russian traditional dress is very modest and are made in a way that makes movement easy for working. The different types of dresses for women and children, called 'sarafan' differ only slightly in decoration. They are often red dresses that touch the ground or hit around the ankle, they have long sleeves.They are made of wool and are embroidered using painted threads. Russian women also wore 'kokoshnik' a head dress.


In the northern areas of Russia the embroidery was very modest and refined, this was in keeping with the architecture there and in the south the embroidery was brightly coloured. This shows how geography effected the style of dress worn by Russian women.

Ushanka

Another common garment worn by Russians in the past is an ushanka. It is a very well known garment world wide. An ushanka is a cape with fur trim, it has earflaps and a leather head covering that is padded. These features of the ushanka protected Russians from the very harsh winters. For example the leather head covering was padded so that if you were to fall on the ice the padding would protect your head. The ear flaps kept them warm as did the fur lining of the cape.    

Ushanka Hat Picture owned by Eugene Zelenko








Sources: http://www.rusclothing.com/traditional-russian/
               http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushanka