Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe: A History in Layers

March 10–July 14, 2013

“An instructive lesson in how these festive relics od dress and people’s memories of the past manage to survive, continuing to impart meaning and dignity.”—Ornament Magazine, Spring 2013

In the past, girls in rural southeastern Europe spent their childhoods weaving, sewing, and embroidering festive dress so that when they reached puberty they could join the Sunday afternoon village dances garbed in resplendent attire. These extremely colorful and intensely worked garments were often adorned with embroidery, lace, metallic threads, coins, sequins, beads, and, perhaps most importantly, fringe. A symbolic element, the fringe provides a reminder that the original string skirt was a marker of fertility and has carried this meaning for more than twenty-thousand years. Over time, new forms of dress were added bit-by-bit to that simple string skirt, so that by 1900, a southeastern European village woman’s apparel consisted of millennia of layered history. With a glance at her, the onlooker could read not only her marital status but also her religion, wealth, textile skills, and more. By emphasizing these traits, and not just her physical beauty, a girl presented herself and was chosen as a bride.

Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe features fifty stunning nineteenth- through twentieth-century ensembles from Macedonia, Croatia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Serbia, Hungary, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, and Romania―nearly all from the Fowler’s excellent collection―plus one hundred individual items including aprons, vests, jackets, and robes. These fascinating ensembles are displayed in an immersive environment that evokes the distinctive mountain landscape in which villagers gathered in their finery.

Lecture:

Culture Fix: Barbara Sloan On Resplendent Dress

Press Release

Resplendent Dress

Exhibition Credits

Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe is organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA in association with the Richard and Patricia Anawalt Center for the Study of Regional Dress at the Fowler Museum. It was curated by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Professor Emerita of Archaeology and Linguistics, Occidental College, and Research Associate, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, and Barbara Belle Sloan, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Regional Dress. Major funding is provided by Patricia Anawalt, R. L. Shep, and the R. L. Shep Endowment Fund at the Fowler Museum. Additional support comes from Lee Bronson in memory of Rada (Radmilla) Bronson, Norma Greene, Carolyn and Charles Knobler, Mary Jane Leland, Michael Rohde, and from the Fowler Textile Council. Hotel sponsor: Hotel Angeleno