Kazakh clothing

Kazakh clothing is a style of clothing worn by Kazakh people, often made of material suited to the region's hot summers and cold winters. Such garments may reflect social standing; contemporary Kazakhs commonly wear modern western clothing, but many still wear traditional clothing for holidays and on special occasions.

Cloth, skin, felt, and fur are all traditional materials used for Kazakh clothing. Embroidery, fur, jewelry and ornamentation may also be used for decoration.

For those who can afford it, imported materials such as silk, brocade and velvet are sewn into clothes.

Hides are used in the production of coatin a process that includes skinning, drying and greasing them with a mixture of sour milk and flour. After four days, the skins are washed and stacked in heavily concentrated salt water. After a further period of drying, the inner side is scraped with a special knife before being heated thus imparting a whitish color to the skin. The skin is then ready for dying in various colors: yellow dye is made by boiling the crushed root of a Taranovy plant; red dye is made from the root of a plant named Uiran Boyau and orange dye is often made from the dried crusts of pomegranates.

Kazakhs use white wool, and consider wool from the neck of sheeps and camels to be particularly valuable.

Fabric may be home-spun and produced on primitive horizontal machines; even in ancient times, imported cotton, silk and woolen fabrics were used by Kazakh nomads. The nobility in feudal times used imported fabrics to make clothes while less affluent Kazakhs wore fur, leather and self-made woolen products.,

Women wear a shirt-like garment known as a koylek. It is sewn from different fabrics depending on the purpose - from inexpensive fabrics for daily use to more expensive ones for festive wear. The dress is made by folding an integral piece of fabric in half and sewing the sides laterally from the armpits to the bottom hem.

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Wikipedia