The Turkish national costume is characterized by many typical features, and despite the external cultural openness, there are still a few people in Turkey who wear and preserve traditional clothes, but the majority use the European style of clothing, or mix some elements of folk costume with Western clothe.
We are going to talk about the Turkish women customs and traditions
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Turkish women customs and traditions in clothes
First: the traditional Turkish dress
- Traditional clothes form part of Turkish traditional culture. In the past, Turk women would weave their own clothes and make dyes from natural plant ingredients, in a way that reflects their feelings in the designs they created.
- Today, each region has its own characteristics in clothing, head coverings, scarves, and socks
- One of the typical features of Turkish clothing is the use of many layers, women usually wear many scarves, or handkerchiefs of different colors, traditional clothes are always colorful, bright, and amazing.
The customs and traditions of clothing of the Aegean region
- Women’s clothing consisted of a long robe, baggy pants, a short jacket, an apron, several head scarves, slippers, and much jewellery. The traditional fabrics were silk, velvet, and cotton.
- Men’s clothing consists of loose-fitting shorts, a jacket, shirt, wide belt, handkerchief, headgear, stockings, and shoes, and is bright, somewhat colourful, embroidered, and embellished with jewellery. Stripes are the most popular patterns on fabric.
Black Sea Region
- The people who live in this area are very strict, and their costumes are made in the same spirit, traditional clothes are mostly used by women, while men wear western style clothes.
- Women’s clothing consisted of a peshtemal (a piece of linen, usually striped, and wrapped around the waist), a shawl called “kizan” and stockings, shoes, or slippers.
- Blue aprons are also used by women, in other feminine fashions consisting of a dress made of black silk brocade, and a light orange perimeter shirt.
- The typical colors of clothing in this region are black, orange, burgundy, crimson, and brown.
- Men’s clothing consists of wide trousers (called “shalvar” or “shalwar kameez”), shirt, jacket, head covering, socks, and shoes.
Central Anatolia
- Women’s clothing consists of wide trousers, a skirt, an apron, a shirt, a jacket, a belt (often a piece of colored cloth), a headdress, and stockings. Central Anatolian clothing is colored and decorated.
- There is a lot of jewelry used with festive costumes.
- Men’s clothing consists of long or short pants, a shirt, a cardigan, or another jacket, a wide belt, and a headgear. The most commonly used colors are blue, red, yellow, and black.
Eastern Anatolia Region
- Eastern Anatolia is a region where many Kurds, Armenians live with the Turkish people, so the national costume of this land contains many features of Kurdish and Armenian clothing.
- Women’s clothing consists of wide trousers, or a long skirt, a jacket, a wide belt, and a scarf. Women wear many layers of clothing
- The clothes are bright and colorful, and the red color is one of the most popular.
- Men’s clothing consists of wide trousers, a shirt (sometimes replaced by a jacket) and a wide belt, and modern men’s fashion headscarves often look pretty European-style.
Marmara Region
- In Marmara region they use a lot of embroidery on their costumes, they always embroider underwear
- Women’s clothing consists of wide pants, a long-sleeved jacket, a belt, a head covering, and socks. Women also wear a “apron”, another type of folk dress that consists of embroidered underpants, a long undershirt, a skirt, a jacket, a handkerchief on the waist, and a belt. The clothes look multi-layered
- Men’s clothing consists of loose, somewhat narrow trousers (tucked into stockings), a shirt, a jacket, a hand towel worn over the waistband, and another towel, worn across the shoulders.
- Men’s fashion is like a female, embroidered, elegantly embellished, bright, multi-layered.
Mediterranean region
- Women’s clothing consists of a skirt, or dress (below the knee), a shirt, a jacket, and a hoodie, which is a very bright and colorful outfit. The most common colors are red, blue, and yellow.
- Men’s clothing consists of wide trousers (built into socks), a shirt, a jacket, a wide belt, and a hoodie. The color of the pants and jackets is dark: black, brown, or blue.
Southeast Anatolia Region
- Women’s clothing consists of a long dress, or kaftan, and the belt of the popular dress of this region is a kind of gap, it contains a few layers, the pieces of clothing are decorated with decoration, jewelry, but in moderation, not rich as in some other regions.
- Men’s clothing consists of wide trousers, a shirt, a robe (knee-length, or just above the knee) or jacket, a wide belt, or a handkerchief around the waist. The clothes look very simple, without much frills.
Second: modern Turkish clothes
- Modern Turkey has a little bit of everything, and it is made up of bustling cosmopolitan centers, farming villages, beautiful Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, and steep mountainous regions.
- More than 70% of Turkish people live in urban areas, Western and traditional ways of life coexist.
- Females wear short dresses, maxi-style dresses, shorts, short skirts, and various types of pants.
- Hats are worn for protection from the sun, and a large bag is very popular because you can get a lot of things like sunscreen, and a camera.
- Stripes, prints, florals, and polka dots are all over the place, and Turkish women love color, ruffles, and glitter.