Kokoshnik. Variations.

One of the great "side effects" of my profession is that I often get to meet extraordinarily talented people. Last year, for example, I became friends with two very special ladies - Alla Solovskaya, brilliant photographer whose beautiful pictures you see in this post and Tatiana Valkova - who specialises in restoration of Russian traditional clothing you see on the pictures in this post. For the past several decades, from Coco Chanel to Karl Lagerfeld's brilliant Russian Collection in 2009, the motives of Russian traditional clothing graced the catwalks of the world's most famous designers. One of the most recognised symbols of Russia is Russian Kokoshnik. Every single Fairy Tale in Russian folklore has a Beauty wearing Kokoshnik.:-) But did you know that Kokoshnik holds thousands of divine little secrets?

Russian women very often get accused of being overdressed. It is true to some degree - we love to put our best in any situation. I, for example, can always identify a lady from Russia just by the way she dresses whether its in Paris, London or New York. This obvious love for beautiful clothing lays in centuries long history of Russian traditional clothing. :-)

Kokoshnik is one of the very important elements of Russian traditional clothing. Kokoshniks often varied in designs, in fact, there were thousands of designs for Kokoshnik simply because every county (gyberniya) in Russia had its own design for Kokoshnik. Just by looking at the embroidery of the dress and design of Kokoshnik people were able to identify the place where the lady who wore it was from.

There were thousands of ways of making Kokoshnik, all very complicated. Very often it could take up to six month to make one single Kokoshnik. Of course, everything was done by hand. I can only imagine how difficult it was! Unfortunately, many of the recipes for design of Kokoshniks are lost forever. In old Russia every girl at the age of 10 had to work on her "pridanoe" -, her wardrobe for her married life. That included not only dresses with complicated embroidery and numerous elements of clothing like belts, shirts and etc., but also head gear. By the time the girl was ready to be married she had to have everything ready. I often say that back than every household in Russia had brilliant couturiers. :-)))

In some cases back of the Kokoshnik was covered with silk or velvet and graced with long veil. In addition many variations of Kokoshnik included little hat attached to the back of it for one single purpose : all hair had to be carefully hidden from the rest of the world. Hair in old Russia had a very special meaning: it was believed that through ones hair evil spirits could posses the soul, the curses of unkind could be made. If the woman was caught without her hair covered - she brought great shame on herself and her children. I find it so interesting since it does have a lot in common with Muslim culture. :-) Even today it is unspoken tradition in Russia to cover your head when you are in Church.

Kokoshniks were, predominately, worn by married women. Unmarried girls sometimes wore them too, but more often unmarried girls wore beautifully decorated and embroidered hats. Every women in Russia wanted to be beautiful. :-) Peasant women, for example, used candy wrappers and foil to decorate their Kokoshniks.The technique was so brilliant that nobody was able to tell what this Kokoshniks were decorated with. :-) One of the most beautiful examples of Kokoshnik decorated with foil and candy wrappers were Kokoshniks from the North of Russia.

Holiday Kokoshniks could cost a fortune! For example Kargopol Kokoshnik (peasant!!!) made out of pearls in the second half of 18th century could cost 1,000 rubles. Just to give you an idea - a cost of a strong working horse was 10 rubles . It was extraordinarily important even for peasant Russian men for their wives to look "not worse" than everybody else. By looking at the outfits and Kokoshniks people usually judged the financial state of the family.

There were very strict rules in dress code. For example, Russian mourning clothes had to be in white color. One always had to wear a belt - "obereg" - protection from evil and dark forces. It was impossible to wear clothes not suitable for ones age. It was also impossible for woman to show her hair or have any part of her body exposed to the world , not even arms. :-)

Back then there was no underwear in the modern sense of this word and because of it women had to be very inventive when it came to personal hygiene. Two long shirts, almost dresses were worn underneath the main dress: the first one served as an underwear, the second one served to cover the first one. The main dress was put on top of this two long shirts.

Because of the fact that there were so many layers of volumouse clothing,wemen seemed to be bigger in size than they actualy were. You can still see the echo of the way Russian women were viewed in Matryoshkas (Russian nesting dolls) :-)

One more interesting fact: in some counties unmarried girls had to put their hair in one braid. From the day of the birth women never cut their hair and by the time they were ready to get married each had long hair usually in braid. After getting married woman had to literally say "good by" to her braid (cry for braid as a part of wedding ceremony) because from that moment on she had to wear 2 braids - as a symbol of being husband's wife.

Until this day Russian Kokoshnik lives not only in Fairy Tales, but as a sybol of beauty of Russia. :-)

I have also attempted to make a version of Kokoshnik for my "Russia Divine.Tribute" Collection. The embroidery took almost 4 weeks to complete, but at the end it was worth every minute. I have to say that this is one of my most favorite "hats" I made so far. It is so much more beautiful in person. :-