Traditional Tailoring Technology as an Ethnographic Source (the Case of Eastern Slavic Clothing in Southern Siberia)

Abstract

The techniques of manufacturing men’s and women’s shirts by late 19th to early 20th century Russian peasants in Southern Siberia are described in the context of ethno-confessional studies. Sewing various parts together, types of seams, and general modeling are analyzed using the descriptive and graphic system adopted in tailoring technology with a view of assessing similarities and differences between Southern Siberian peasant clothing and that common in other Eastern Slavic groups. Traditional terms are listed and interpreted on the basis of fi eld studies in the 1970s– 990s and the analysis of museum collections of traditional clothing. We describe shirts with rectangular inserts on shoulders (polik shirts) including those where the inserts are connected with sleeves (non-polik shirts). The technique was based on using straight pieces of fabric. Technological analysis suggests that such shirts were sewn by a group of Russian Old-Believers, known as “Polyaki”. Absence of parallels with another group of Old-Believers, known as “Semeyskie” and living in Trans-Baikal, suggests that the latter had begun to use store-bought clothing and sew oblique sleeves comparatively early. The clothing worn by Old-Believers (who had migrated from the Dnieper-Desna interfl uve), and by non-Old-Believers (migrants from Vetka near Gomel and the adjacent areas of Chernigov region) was generally similar.