apron
- Museum number
- Eu1997,04.165
- Description
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A woman's apron. Made from two equal sized pieces of orange/red weft faced tabby woven wool cloth sewn together along one of the selvedges. Fine, regularly spaced maroon bands interspersed with thicker black, intermittent lines. (Yarns taken across back.) A very full fringe along hemline and part of sides; made of orange/red, maroon and black wool, orange/red goat hair yarn, and gold-coloured metal-wrapped thread (yellow cotton core). Further embellisment towards hemline, including a band of cream cotton crochet with hanging silver-coloured metal sequins; another band of cream crochet with blocks of tiny glass beads attached, stitched at top of fringing, rick-rack, interlaced using gold-coloured metal-wrapped thread; applied twill woven ribbon (with metal thread, supplementary weft); and narrow woven passementerie worked in silver-coloured metal-wrapped thread. Eleven coins stitched to lower section: 1 x 50 leva; 3 x 10 leva; 4 x 5 leva; 1 x 10 and 1 x 20 stotinki and 1 x 20 (?) dated 1884. Strip of bright pink fulled wool cloth at back bottom of apron. Ties stitched to top corners. (Original ties missing). Made from pink, green and maroon woollen braid.
- Production date
- 20thC (donor information)
- Dimensions
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Length: 67 centimetres (including tassels)
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Width: 41 centimetres
- Curator's comments
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Text from Eth Doc 1892, no. 89e: A woman's apron, a 'pregač guvezen'. Made by village women from two panels of home-produced orange/red wool with a horizontal pattern of faint rows of black and red bars. The panels are joined vertically. The bottom half is decorated with a very thick fringe "alov kis" of twisted flame-coloured cotton thread with some black and gold thread, There is a strip of handmade crochet adjoining the fringe and across the bottom about a quarter up which has additional sequins. Gold braid is sewn along the bottom and uprights of the fringe with a strip of gold rick-rack and red braid in between. A double triangle of gold braid with a vertical strip and two corner "Ts" of the same complete the handwork. There are eleven silver coins - eight Bulgarian, 10, para [?], and two small and one large Serbian coins - one is missing.
Religion: Macedonian Orthodox.
Information supplementary to Eth Doc:
For the Mariovo woman's costume, see 'The National Dresses of Macedonia', Ethnographic Museum, Skopje 1963, pls.XL-XLIII.
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See Mladenovic, Vesna 1999, 'Threads of Life: Red Fringes in Macedonian Dress', in Welters, Linda (ed.), Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia: Beliefs about Protection and Fertility: 97 - 110.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1997
- Acquisition notes
- Obtained for the donor in 1972 by Diane Waller during a long stay in Macedonia.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- Eu1997,04.165
