Table of Contents

  • CLOTHING xi. In the Pahlavi and post-Pahlavi periods

    ʿAlī-Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    Office workers and other urban residents who favored modernity gradually adopted the sardārī (frock coat), trousers, and even on occasion Western suits. In 1928 the cabinet resolved that all male Persians dress uniformly in Western style.

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  • CLOTHING xiii. Clothing in Afghanistan

    Nancy Hatch Dupree

    The most diagnostic item of clothing is headgear; and even the ubiquitous turban (Pers. langōtā, dastār, Pashto paṭkay, pagṛi), which can vary in length from 3 to 6 m, takes on distinguishing characteristics, depending on the arrangement of folds.

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  • CLOTHING xiv. Clothing of the Hazāra tribes

    Klaus Ferdinand

    In the 1950s Hazāra women made all the family clothing, and they also wove barrak on a horizontal loom of a type common in Afghanistan. Cotton is cultivated in the warmer southern part of Hazārajāt, for example, in Šahrestān (formerly Sepāy) in Dāy Zangī and farther south in Orūzgān and Jāḡūrī; profes­sional male weavers make the traditional cotton cloth called karbās on a loom of a type found extensively in southern and western Asia.

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  • CLOTHING xv. Clothing of Tajikistan

    Guzel’ Maĭtdinova

    The most common traditional garment is a straight dress, widening at the bottom, worn over trousers. The long, full sleeves generally cover the hands, though in some mountain regions sleeves are closely fitted to the wrists. Another type of dress is cut straight, with a yoke and inset sleeves.

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  • CLOTHING xvi. Kurdish clothing in Persia

    Shirin Mohseni and Peter Andrews

    In western Azerbaijan Mahābād is the main urban center for the Kurds. Women there wear balloon-shaped trousers (darpe), 4-6 m wide, fitted at the ankles, and a long pleated dress (kerās), 4-5 m wide, with a round neck­line and long sleeves.

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  • CLOTHING xvii. Clothing of the Kurdish Jews

    Ora Shwartz-Beeri

    Everyday men’s clothes were made from handwoven sheep’s wool. Suits for weddings and other festive occasions were of handwoven mohair. These suits were embellished with embroi­dery. According to infor­mants, expensive fabrics for women’s and children’s clothes were also handmade of wild silk, from worms that feed on oak trees in the region.

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  • CLOTHING xviii. Clothing of the Baluch in Persia

    Iran Ala Firouz and Mehremonīr Jahānbānī

    The basic garments are variations of the traditional and tribal costume characteristic of Persia as a whole: a long, loose robe with a round neckline, a slit down the center of the bodice, and long, wide sleeves tapering toward the wrists, worn over a chemise and wide trousers narrowing at the ankles and with a drawstring at the waist.

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  • CLOTHING xix. Clothing of the Baluch in Pakistan and Afghanistan

    Pamela Hunte

    There is some variation in apparel among tribes, especially in specific embroidery designs and in the terminology applied to garments and embroidery patterns. The northern tribes wear heavier clothing as protection in the colder climate. 

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  • CLOTHING xx. Clothing of Khorasan

    Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Beyhaqī

    The male costume includes either a tasseled black cap, around which a shawl is wrapped; a hood woven of black lamb’s wool, which covers the head from above the eyebrows to the neck; a traveling hood, which covers the face, with an opening for the eyes; or a hat made of lambskin.

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  • CLOTHING xxi. Turkic and Kurdish clothing of Azerbaijan

    P. A. Andrews And M. Andrews

    Traditional costume, now worn largely in a tribal context, retains the form of garments as they were at the end of the 19th century; it is only among Kurdish, rather than Turkic, men that elements have survived the reforms of Reżā Shah in everyday wear.

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  • CLOTHING xxii. Clothing of the Caspian area

    Christian Bromberger

    In several aspects the traditional dress (Gīlaki lebās; Ṭāleši ḵalā) of Gīlān and Māzandarān bears a struc­tural resemblance to that of other rural regions of Persia. It is constructed in successive layers, often of similar pieces superimposed, like women’s skirts or men’s shirts in winter. 

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  • CLOTHING xxiii. Clothing of the Persian Gulf area

    R. Shahnaz Nadjmabadi

    Hormozgān is the main focus here. Women’s clothing consists of four basic parts: head covering, dress, trousers, and shoes. The normal head covering is a rectangular black scarf of thin silk (maknā) wrapped round the head and fastened on top with a metal pin (čollāba).

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  • CLOTHING xxiv. Clothing of the Qašqāʾī tribes

    Lois Beck

    In the 19-20th centuries the Qašqāʾī constituted a tribal confederacy of people of ethnolinguistically diverse origin; they were predominantly nomadic pastoralists who migrated seasonally between the low­lands and the highlands in the southern Zagros mountains. They created their own distinctive dress from market-derived goods and the work of village and urban craft specialists.

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  • CLOTHING xxv. Clothing of the Baḵtīārīs and other Lori speaking tribes

    Jean-Pierre Digard

    Members of the Lori-speaking ethnic groups, including the Lors themselves, the Baḵtīārīs, and the Boīr-Aḥmadīs are characterized by similar styles of dress, with variations reflecting differences in tribe and social class of the wearer, variations that can have strong symbolic meaning, particularly among the Baḵtīārīs.

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  • CLOTHING xxvi. Clothing and jewelry of the Turkmen

    P. A. Andrews

    Until the 1970s the clothing and jewelry of the Turkmen formed the most elaborate tribal costume still used in Persia. The principal women’s garment is a shift (köynek), formerly of silk, now replaced by synthetic fibers.

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  • CLOTHING xxvii. Historical lexicon of Persian clothing

    Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

    The lexicon has been compiled from personal observations, descriptions in Persian and other sources, and from old paintings, drawings, and photographs.

  • CLOTHING xxviii. Concordance of clothing terms among ethnic groups in modern Persia

    EIr

    This concordance has been compiled from xiii-xxvi, above.

  • CLOUDS

    Eckart Ehlers

    Large tracts of central Persia and the adjacent arid plateaus of Afghanistan lie under cloudless skies for most of the year, which contributes to typical “conti­nental” climatic conditions.

  • CLOVER

    Cross-Reference

    See ŠABDAR.

  • CLOWN

    Cross-Reference

    See DALQAK.