Tag: traditional folk costume

Clothes circa 1906 from real color photos: Middle Asia along the Silk Road

Rare color photographs from the Silk Road taken in 1906 – 1910.

The photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, an offspring of the Russian nobility and an enthusiast of color photos and movies, took color photographs in Samarkhand and Bukhara between 1906 and 1910. Both cities are ancient Middle-Asian centers and were major stops on Silk Road. These photographs were a part of very large photographic project that documented the different corners of the vast Russian Empire. Among the hundreds of scenic photos, there were several portraits of the local inhabitants from the different layers of the society. It is very interesting to see what they wore.

Before you look through the pictures, I should remind you that they are real color photographs.

After the revolution in Russia Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky found his way to United States. He never stopped working on inventing better technology for colored photography and movies.

Kurmy
  • The prison
  • The inmates
  • The official
  • The street scene with a passer by
  • The imporant official
Bukhara
  • The school for the Jewish boys
  • The carpenter
  • The students
  • Bread seller
Samarkhand
  • The Kirghiz family
  • The Kurdish woman
Different tribes of the Middle Asia

Komi knitting III: treasure trove of textile designs

The redwork textile patterns of the Finno-Ugric people is a great source for designing knitwear patterns. This is the third post about the Komi knitting and its history.

Besides being skilled knitters, the Komi women were also imaginative weavers. The patterns on their towels, table cloths, belts and shirts are of the same diagonal geometric shapes as seen in their knitted objects, but the compositions are more sophisticated.

First: the postscript to Komi Knitting II

I had the most interesting exchange on Facebook with Johanna P. from Finland.

She posted several pictures with sweaters. I’m taking a liberty to republish the photos with Johanna’s descriptions. The items are excellent illustrations of the Finno-Ugric textile tradition, but they are not the products of the traditional Komi knitting.

The resident of the Archangelsk area, early 20th century.
Archangelsk was a major Russian port and had close ties with both – Europe and the land of Komi. The population of Archangelsk was a wild mix of the Russian outcasts and explorers and the native Finno-Ugric tribes.
The sweater collected from the White Sea shore (Archangelsk area, to the north of the Komi) in 1911.
National Museum of Finland
The design based on Finno-Ugric textile patterns. Circa 1986.

… now back to topic – the Komi textiles

I found several diagrams in the ethnographic book. The patterns are copied from the original textiles and belts of the Perm region of the Komi Republic.

The patterns from towels, shirts and belts made by the Komi women of Perm Region in the 19th and early 20th century
Combination of several designs for the vest

The diagonal patterns of the Komi are very predictable and easy to combine into large-scale intricate borders and all-over patterns. Charlene Schurch’s book Mostly Mittens: Traditional Knitting Patterns from Russia’s Komi People (see my previous post) explains the principle of the Komi patterns.
For my vest featured above, I combined a couple of border patterns from for the socks and the pattern with a stylized female figure called Bereginya (Mother Protector) found on 19th-century towel pattern from Perm region of the Komi Respublic.