America

Native American clothing is made of animal skins and the clothing and decoration varies from tribe to tribe. 

Breechcloth
Breechcloth is worn by men and is a long rectangular piece of animal skin that is worn between the legs and tucked over a belt. They are also worn by women but not as outerwear. Wearing a breechcloth leaves the legs bare so leggings are worn. The leggings are attached to the same belt as the breechcloth. Native American womens leggings were shorter and not attached to the belt with the breechcloth. 

 Breechcloth                               
http://www.native-languages.org/breechcloth.htm

As I said the styles and customs vary but in some tribes women wore a one piece dress. Like the one in the picture.

Moccasins and Mukluk
Most Native Americans wore moccasins, a leather shoe, or mukluk, sturdy leather boots. Again the styles vary but the basic material, leather, is common in all. Some are fringed others are decorated intricately.

Cloaks
Cloaks were worn in colder weather and many of the tribes in the northern parts of America wore fur parkas in the winter.
 http://vivifypicture.com/native-american-wedding-dress
After the colonization of North America Native American tribes were pushed out of their land and forced to live more closely to each other. This resulted in many tribes sharing their tribal dress between themselves. 
Headresses and fringed garments became more popular in different tribes where they had not originated. Native Americans then started to bring in some more contemporary European styles to their clothing. 
Today traditional clothing is only worn to religious ceremonies or other important events. Although items like moccasins are still wor on a daily basis in many tribes. 

From this it is clear that the style of dress has to suit where you are living and in the case of the Native Americans it also depends on the materials that were available from the land to make their clothes. Also the fact that they moved closer together meant their clothing was shared and styles were adopted by each tribe.  

Picture owned by Daderot

 Sources:  http://www.native-languages.org/clothing.htm
                           http://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/native-american-clothing/   

Ireland

Ireland
Not much is known about Irish traditional dress but we do know that they wore mainly wool and animal skin. The cloaks they wore were called mantles. They were often made of many scraps of wool sewn together. 

Brats were another type of cloak worn. The wealthy wore these cloaks as they were made of different colours of wool and signified wealth. These cloaks signified so much that in Brehon Law it was said that slaves were not allowed to wear cloaks with more than one colour in them. 

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/traditional-irish-clothing.html

The léine was worn under the brat. It was a long tunic that went to their knees and was wide in the bottom and got narrow at the top. 

The ionar was a pleated jacket worn over the brat, historical sources show that the ionar was very intricately decorated with embroidery. 

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/traditional-irish-clothing.html

Women wore léine like the men but as time went on they began wearing long dresses decorated with ribbons. The léine was traditionally yellow as the colour of Ireland was yellow. The Irish used yellow as it was a representation of the sun, the Irish then believed that the sun was a symbol of life. 

http://www.potomacleather.com/Lassies-Irish.htm

Traditional Irish clothing is very similar to traditional Scottish clothing. Animal skin and wool had to be worn as it would get very cold in winter. As you can see from the different types if clothing worn, the Irish layered many garments to keep warm. Their clothes also gave a clear representation of their wealth.
Bye :)

Sources: wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_clothing
                          http://www.mcginleyclan.org/nativeclothing.htm

Traditional Russian Folk Dance

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

Pictures
Here are some pictures of the clothes I talked about and the materials they are made of.
 
 

Sari Fabric Picture owned by Sujit Kumar

Sari Picture owned by Ranas

 

Kurta Picture owned by Purva4u

 

 

 

India

So the first countries national dress that I will be looking at is India. Most of you will be familiar with the brightly coloured clothes traditionally worn by Indian women. What you may not know is that the type of garment worn can depend on religion, where you live and the climate of the region. In certain circumstances, such as a death in the family, Hindu women will wear white to show mourning, this shows that the different colours mean different things. 

Now onto the different clothes:

Sari/ Saree

A sari is a peace of cloth usually four to nine meters in length that is worn by Indian women. It is worn over a petticoat and a blouse. It is tucked into the petticoat and then the rest of the sari, the pallu/ palluv, is worn over the shoulder. There are over 80 different ways of wearing a Sari but the region and fashion often dictates what styles are worn.
The Sari is made of light and airy cloth as it can be very hot in India and other Southern Asian countries where the Sari is worn.

Kurta 

A Kurta is a long loose fitting shirt that was, historically, only worn by men but has now become a style both men and women wear. They are often made of thin silk or cotton in the summer and thick wool in the winter. They are worn nowadays with jeans or leggings.


As you can see these different garments are made of materials to suit the climate and are also worn to show wealth, religion or where you are from.

Most Indians wear sandals as the climate is hot and wet mostly.

I hope you learned something new from this post!
Bye:)


Sources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothing_in_India
                     http://www.culturalindia.net/indian-clothing/

Introduction

Hi, I will be doing my blog on the traditional clothing of countries around the world. I will be looking at the reasons they wore these kinds of clothes and the types of clothes they needed to wear because of their climates and the places they lived. I will also look at when they wear these clothes nowadays. For example during national festivals or holidays. I will also be looking into the similarities and differences between the different styles of dress. I hope you find it interesting!
 Bye :)