Jill Condra – Encyclopedia of National Dress. Traditional Clothing Around the World (2013)

Автор: Jill Condra
Название книги: Encyclopedia of National Dress. Traditional Clothing
Формат: PDF
Страницы: 838
Жанр: Мода и Дизайн
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

This two-volume set presents information and images of the varied clothing and textiles of cultures around the world, allowing readers to better appreciate the richness and diversity of human culture and history.

• Contributions from over 50 experts in their field

• Dozens of photographs

• A bibliographic listing of further reading and references with each section

Modern dress exists in an age when a global culture is in the process of developing
thanks to rapid exchanges of information, but there are still distinctions
to be made between peoples of different countries and different cultures.
Most of the world does indeed wear American-style jeans and T-shirts, but many
people around the world still identify themselves, even if only for special occasions
or festivals, with a style of dress that is unique to their own way of living
and relective of their history. Recording information on national dress is perhaps
growing even more important in order to preserve the history of the clothing that
people identify as culturally speciic and that they use to identify themselves in
some distinct way.
Those who study material culture understand that clothing, as an artifact, is the
most intimate of objects and relects details about the people who wore it. Individual
garments tell a story about the wearer. Sometimes it is possible to know what
the person’s occupation was, certainly it is possible to know his or her physical
dimensions such as height and weight, and it is usually possible to tell how wealthy
the person was, based on the type of materials and techniques used to produce the
garment. It is also possible, in some cases, to know the religious afiliation, ethnic
background, and age of the person.
The Encyclopedia of National Dress explores the following types of clothing in
more than 130 nations and autonomous regions: national dress, folk costume, and
ethnic dress, all terms that could be used to describe the clothing or combinations
of clothing (outits) that have traditionally been worn by a distinct number
of people within a certain country or culture. Dress can be used to distinguish a
people just as much as it is used for the people to identify themselves as not being
from another group, perhaps a rival tribe or people from a different country or culture
close by. National boundaries do sometimes move, leaving people of similar
cultures and dress traditions living in separate nations. Sometimes, similar types of
dress with common cultural symbols have been grouped together in this publication
to show that certain styles of dress are cross cultural in nature and adopted by
many different people at the same time.
In this encyclopedia, we aim to celebrate dress worn all over the world by
different types of people in dozens of countries. Though not all countries, tribes,
and cultures are covered in these volumes, we attempt to give the reader a glimpse
into the culture and history of dress, and in some cases how dress is used today to
celebrate the uniqueness that exists in the world, even in this increasingly homogenous
global culture. In some cases, we have not been successful in identifying a
speciic dress associated with a nation. For example, Israel is a relatively young
country with a large population of people of the Jewish religion, but who also
share the territory with Muslims and Christians, all of whom have diverse identities
closely related to their religions. Young nations with melting-pot populations,
such as Canada, the United States, or Australia, also have a hard time deining their
“national” dress. Each of these countries has a long history of aboriginal or First
Nations dress, but after the countries were settled by Europeans, the dress worn by
the old and new inhabitants varied and changed dramatically depending on where
they lived in the vast landscapes. In the case of Canada, dress changed if the settlers
were French or English, or farmers as opposed to traders. Deining national
dress in these cases has been challenging.