Costumes



The work of Zsilinszky Mihály in 1872 describes in detail the period costumes of Szarvas: "Men wore leather sporrans around the waist with a short shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Their helmet was a hat which had a narrow brim where they put the pipe. They cut the top of their hat (kalpag) around, like the rind of the melon and then let it down on the back. On special occasions they did not wear coats made of fur or broad-cloth but they threw a neatly finished skin of a lamb on the back, tied the skin legs and so went to church. Long fur cloaks and coats were worn only in winter. During the years the one-feet-high kalpag became its half, the size of an ordinary Hungarian hat. Instead of sporrans they twisted leather belts around the waist."

By the beginning of the 19th century the most important elements of best clothes for women developed: underwear, petticoats, bodices, skirts, aprons, sheepskin waistcoats and bonnets. The slip-over underwear was made of white linen, wide ribbons were used to tie the neck, the sleeves, which had lace ruffle down to the elbow, were tied into a bunch with a ribbon. In Békéscsaba and Tótkomlós women wore pleated skirts that were sewed together from several pieces. Girls combed their hair straight, braided and tied it with a ribbon which hang down to the heels. Women fastened their buns with a pin made of horn, later copper decorated with carvings (ihlicska). To show their ethnic belongs beside of the civil clothes they preserved their net bonnets which were richly decorated with flitters and pearls (csepjec) until the beginning of the 20th century.

Sheepskin waistcoats were best clothes and everyday wear in every Slovakian settlement at the southern east part of the Great Plain until the turn of the 20th century. Every Slovakian settlement had its own style. The sheepskin waistcoat of Tótkomlós was outstanding with its cutting, methods of ornaments and application embroidered with silk that was pulled to warps. In Békéscsaba and Mezõberény the green or red placements on the back of waistcoats were usually heart-shaped often with the motif of a cock. The middle of the back of the waistcoats of Berény was usually decorated with a twelve-pointed colourfully embroidered star with flitters and pearls. The mark of the longer cut sheepskin waistcoat of Szarvas with darker coloured embroidery is the larkspur and the bunch of flowers with a rose in the middle and buds arching out of the rows of leaves.

Traditional sheepskin waistcoats were worn by Slovakian women and girls of Békés for the longest time all over the Great Plain. The furriers of Szarvas and Tótkomlós made brilliant waistcoats for their customers even in the 1930s.