FolkCostume&Embroidery: Costumes of the Lemkos / Rusyns

Hello all.
Today I will talk about the costume of the ethnic peninsula which lies to the southeast of the Poprad area which I covered in my last article. Here is the area on the map. In fact I have not been able to find any costume material for the eastern group of villages, but I have included them in this region.

The level of information which I have been able to find varies quite a bit from village to village. In some it appears that the local costume has been or is being replaced by a generic north Šariš costume. Some local groups are buying performance costumes rather than having them made in the village. The costume seems to have been best preserved in the southernmost village of the western group, Šoma - Шома, or Šomka - Шомкa, which has been renamed Drienica - Др'єниця.

Šoma - Шома or Drienica - Др'єниця

The couple at the top of the article are from Šoma.

The woman's shirt has short full sleeves, and the collar and cuff are decorated with either woven or embroidered ornament. The front is smock-gathered on either side of the middle opening, or sometimes the opening is on the side edge of the smocking.

The bodice is the most distinctive part of this costume. It has a round neck, and is either made of brocade or has embroidery on the body of it. This may be in many different techniques, including cross stitch, ribbon embroidery, counted satin stitch, beads and sequins, etc. The neck and armholes are edged with wide contrasting ribbon in a solid color. They close up the front with buttons and loops of either cord or ribbons. The ribbon may be edged with other trim.

The skirt is full and is made of a plain or damask material.

The apron may be of three kinds. Plain black or other colored material. If this is the case, then a length of Czech jacquard ribbon is tucked into the front waistband.

The second option is that it is made of two fields of cloth joined vertically by colorful stitching on the seam.

Thirdly, the apron may be of brocade or be embroidered, either with a broad horizontal stripe, which seems to have been the original, or more recently with wider designs.

For older women or colder weather, short jackets may be worn. These have a somewhat different design.

Single girls wore their hair in a single braid, often decorated with a ribbon.

Married women wore a chepets, a cap that covered the hair which was put up in a ring at the top rear of the head, likely with the aid of a wooden ring. In this region the chepets was in a pillbox shape, with a lace front part. This was originally flat and of bobbin lace, but later was made of crochet lace, and was shaped to stand up on the forehead.The top of the chepets was round and heavily ornamented with beadwork or embroidery. It also had hanging ribbons as part of the ornament. A kerchief was sometimes worn over it.

There were images of the 'capping of the bride' ceremony performed on stage above. The bride was originally wearing the ceremonial girl's headress, the parta. I do not know if this is worn only by brides in this village, or if girls would also wear it on other special occasions.

Shawls were also worn here as in most places.

Men's outfits were typical for the region. Here is a man's workday outfit.

The men's dress shirt originally had embroidery. Here is an embroidered man's shirtfront and a boy's shirt with embroidery.

This seems to be rare today. Here are some more images from this village.

A video of a performance in the village of Drienica. At the 16:45 mark they cap the bride.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjshzbY4C2g&t=1247s

A video of women from this village singing in Church.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4QQ6ibkA7w&t=818s

I will now present the material which I have found from the other villages in this group, proceeding north from Shomka.

Červená Voda - Червона Вода

Here we can see very similar garments at an exhibit.

Here we see a stage performance with generic north Šariš costumes.

Jakovany - Яковяни

I have found no contemporary photos of this costume. If anyone has some, I would be grateful if you emailed them to me.

Ľutina - Лютина

Here is a performance from this village. This first group may be wearing the costume of the village, the others are wearing more generic north Sharish outfits, and may be guests from other villages. This is followed by two embroidery designs from this village.

Olejníkov - Олiйник

The only thing which I have found from this village is an embroidery design for a man's shirtfront which greatly resembles the one from Shomka.

Hanigovce - Ганигівці

Milpoš - Мільпош

Here again we see a mix of costumes, some resembling that of Shomka and this region, others being more generic north Sharish costumes, which perhaps are replacing it.