THE LANGUAGE OF CLOTHES

In the history of any culture, the national costumes is not only one of the elements of historical and cultural identity but also is the nation’s aesthetic and artistic heritage. The National State Carpet Museum and the Museum of the Heydar Aliyev Centre have organized permanent exhibitions where the visitors can get to know ethnic and artistic features of costumes from nine different climatic zones of Azerbaijan.

At the beginning of July, the National State Museum of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan opened the exhibition The National Costumes of Azerbaijan As They Are, which will stay open until November 2017. The goal is to contribute to the preservation of the Azerbaijani-Turkic-Muslim culture in the globalizing world of the 21st century and transfer this tradition to the next generations.

Accents

Along with the exhibits of costumes for women and men, the museum presents a series of historical photographs made by the Russian photographer, orientalist and ethnographer Dmitry Yermakov (1845-1916), who has managed to fix the instant moment of reality in his photos. These include the photos of beys, noble women and their families, as well as the peasants. Also, the works of other photographers of the past such as F. Ordain, A. Laursabov, L. Bregadze, A. Gaponenko, and artists Vasily Vereshchagin, Prince G. Gagarin preserved that unique image of our ancestors and the architectural style of the city, which we are proud of today. The exhibition attracts many tourists and residents of Baku, according to our enthusiastic guide Afet Kerimov. He has also told us about the peculiarities of national costumes for women and men, traditions of ethical relationships between men and women, costume details, which include encoded messages hinting the representatives of different social strata to distinguish each other. In addition, our guide said that each class and age of people had their own traditions in wearing suits, applying details and attributes such as various types of jewellery, hats, weapons, etc.

Costumes for women

According to the book The National Costumes of Azerbaijan (1972), the upper part of a women shoulder clothe consisted mainly of üst köynyayi (upper shirt), arkhalig, chepken, labbada, külaji, kürdü, eshmak, and bahari. The high waist womandress included tuman (skirt) and chakhchur. Headdress for women mostly consisted of kalaghai, naz-naz, gaz-gaz and orpak (silk kerchiefs). In Azerbaijan, the kelaghai was mostly homemade. The main centres of kelaghai manufacturing were the cities of Ganja, Shamakhi and Sheki.

Azerbaijani woman dress is unique! The textures, geometric proportions, gamma of colour combinations, accessories create an impression of extraordinarily attractive visual rhythms. The costumes of women from Mughan-Ardebil, Ganja-Karabakh, Borchali, Gazakh, Shamakhi, and Baku are stylistically similar but still remain absolutely authentic. The women's costumes consist of three parts: köynek (blouse), tuman (skirt) and a high shoulder dress, which also has a variety of options from a light don (dress) to a quilted jacket or vest trimmed with a fur ferret mainly imported from Russia. Sometimes the women wore chakhchurs over tumans. These are two panties independent of each other. They were fastened on the belt of a woman's skirt with at an upper-pointed angle. The hem of tuman was tucked in from the sides, forming an interesting composition in front and behind. The length of tuman was such that in bad weather it was necessary to protect it from dirt. The chakhchurs were made usually from dense silk and closed the ankles tight with splints. On top of the splint was a sock knitted from pure sheep wool. The ornament and colour scheme of threads corresponded to the traditions of each specific region of the country. Craftsmen produced not only silk and woolen threads, but also many other cheap, very beautiful and high-quality fabrics that were an element of Azerbaijani culture. According to historical data, the following fabrics were produced in Azerbaijan: zarbaft, brocade, satin, taffeta, sarsenet, damask, kisei, velvet, darai, mahud, shal, tirma, pestrel, calf, calico, etc. Some of them were known by other common names popular in Azerbaijani colloquial speech. For example, haji mene bakh or haji (look at me), gece-gündüz(night and day), gende dur (stay away), alishdim-yandim (I am hot), küche mene dar gelir(the world is not enough for me), etc. These fabrics were consumed by the local population and exported to other countries.

Our contemporaries are much accustomed to see the versions of dresses popular in and around Baku. Everything is familiar and attractive here from the shoes to kelaghai. Everything! Even the accessories such as the jewellery elements extensively popular among the young married and elderly women. They were wearing gold coins or gold plates sewn to the bottom line of the blouse (köynek). The more the number of these gold coins and round golden plates representing the sun, the higher was the social status of the husband of that woman. In principle, the men of the past were extrapolating information on their incomes and material capital in an encoded way through presenting their women expensive jewellery. Little has changed in this language between a man and society. But we have many more accessories today such as gadgets, shoes, watches and expensive perfumes.

The costume of a woman from the Mughan-Ardebil ethnic region looks very unusual and attractive! The colour scheme, and the overall composition of the costume are authentic, as unlike the other regions, it includes an upper cloak worn on top of other clothing, shaping a sort of apron covering the clothes both in front and behind. Modern designers of women’s clothing could well borrow this version! Original, beautiful, attractive… However, one can discover many options that would help the designers to create modern clothes similar to national women's costumes without depersonalizing them, as does the trend in prêt-a-porter these days. On the contrary, this would help to raise the level of fashion design. After all, everyday clothes of the Azerbaijani of the past skilfully emphasized woman’s individuality.

Costumes for men

They are much more ascetic. At first glance, there is nothing special about them: traditional clothes worn by men from the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. It can also be divided into the lower and upper parts, the shoulder and waist. The upper part consisted of a shirt, the shoulder one – from arhhalig and chukha, the waist - from trousers. This type of clothing was adopted throughout Azerbaijan. Only in the elements of the upper shoulder dress had their own characteristics in different ethnic regions expressed in detail. The peculiarity of the costume was that it absolutely accurately reflected the social belonging of the owner. An important code element of the costume was a headdress.

According to the same book (1972), "the most common types of male headdresses were the various forms of fur hats: bukhara-papag and charkazi-papag made from black, grey or brown lambskin, shala-papag worn by shepherds and made from sheep wool and so on. Arakhchins or skullcaps made from tirma and silk with various embroideries, often gold embroidery, were widely popular. Elderly men wore also tesek, a small quilted skullcap of white coarse calico put under a fur hat. At night, men wore shabgulag, conical quilted or embroidered caps.

Male headdress was given great importance. Walking without it was considered a great shame. Often, instead of duellos popular in the European society, the men used to knock off the head of their enemy. The defeated person without a headdress was considered disgraced forever. Such an unfortunate man was advised to put on a headscarf on his head instead of a hat. This was equal to be called a woman.

Akhunds, or the clergymen, wore turbans. The colour of the turban, as well as akhund’s belt informed the society which religious movement its owner belonged to.

Another element of the men's suit was weapons and gazirs ­- metal or wooden cartridge pockets sewn in rows on the right and left chests of the Circassian suit. Only people of the upper class could be warriors and defenders. Often one could see cold weapons such as short swords for close fights and long ones for strikes at a distance on beys leather belt. They also often wore small pistols attached to the belts. Gazirs were used to carry gunpowder. Atmagul was a long sleeve hanging down over the main sleeve and helped a nobleman to grab a hot weapon not to burn his hand while reloading the gun. These elements cannot be seen in peasant clothes. The peasants' dress is simpler. Headdresses are not from expensive karakulcha but from sheepskin. The ordinary people did not have weapons unless they were hunters or gochu. At least this is evidenced by old photographs, and works by artists Vereshchagin and Gagarin. This fact allows us to conclude that the noble class of the Azerbaijani society of the past centuries, until the 20^th century, preserved the tradition of combat training and taught martial arts to boys born in the family. It is no accident that representatives of aristocratic families entered the Azerbaijani (Tatar) regiment of the Wild Division.

Women's Jewelry

I think this topic deserves a special attention. Not only because the ornaments served as an expressive addition to the costume. In Baku, Ganja, Shamakhi, Sheki, Nakhchivan and Shusha, there were masters who created authentic masterpieces of jewellery art: necklaces, earrings, breast pendants, rings of gold, silver, rubies, diamonds, diamonds, emeralds, turquoise, carnelian, pearls. Today they can be seen not only in the Museum of History of Azerbaijan but also on the shelves of numerous antique shops. Tourists readily buy them to take a piece of our history and art with them. If they buy them in Icheri Sheher, then an antiques dealer can tell them a short story-excursion about the historical past of Azerbaijan's jewellery art. They always emphasize what belongs to our culture, and what does not. For example, silver belts both for women and men, which were often brought to us from Dagestan, belong to the Kubachin masters.

The costume exhibits presented in human size, as well as the photos from the museum's collection testify to the unique culture of the people, who expressed their soul through the culture of everyday and festive clothes. This is an inexhaustible source for modern designers of clothes.