Сербский национальный костюм: история и традиции.

Serbian traditional clothing, also called as Serbian national costume or Serbian dress (, plural: српскe народнe ношњe / srpske narodne nošnje), refers to the traditional clothing worn by Serbs living in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and the extended Serbian diaspora communities in Austria, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, United States, etc. Like any traditional dress of a nation or culture, it has been lost to the advent of urbanization, industrialization, and the growing market of international clothing trends. The wide range of regional folk costumes show influence from historical Austrian, Hungarian, German, Italian, and Ottoman Turkish presence. Nonetheless, the costumes are still a pinnacle part of Serbian folk culture. From the 19th century and onwards, Serbs have adopted western styled clothing. This change has started in larger settlements such as cities and towns, although it was not uncommon to see rural women in traditional working costumes all the way until the end of 1970s. Today, these national costumes are only worn by some elderly in rural areas but are most often worn with connection to special events and celebrations, mostly at ethnic festivals, religious and national holidays, weddings, tourist attractions, and by dancing groups who dance the traditional Serbian kolo, or circle dance.

Serbian costume is also known for the variety of textures and embroidery. The jelek is a waistcoat made from wool or velvet while women's jackets are lined with fur. The peony embroidery design often found on aprons, socks and elsewhere is colored bright red, symbolising the blood lost at the Battle of Kosovo. Characteristic features of Serbian dress include opanci, footwear dating back to antiquity. Traditional Serbian female dress consists of opanci, embroidered woolen socks that reached to the knees and nazuvice. Skirts were very varied, of plaited or gathered and embroidered linen, with tkanice serving as a belt. An important part of the costume were aprons (pregače) decorated with floral motifs. Shirts were in the shape of tunics, richly decorated with silver thread and cords was worn over the shirt. In some areas it was replaced by an upper sleeveless dress of red or blue cloth, knee long, richly decorated and buttoned in front (zubun). Scarves and caps bordered with cords were worn as headdress. Girls also wore collars, or a string of gold coins around their throats, earrings, bracelets, and their caps were decorated with metal coins or flowers. In medieval times, rulers, the nobility and senior churchmen brought many of their fabrics from the Republic of Ragusa. The most common fabric for ordinary Serbs was sclavina or schiavina, a coarse woolen fabric. Linen was also made within Serbia while silk was grown at the Dečani Monastery as well as near Prizren. Few secular garments have survived from the medieval period the most notable being the costume worn by Lazar Hrebeljanović at the Battle of Kosovo. More decorated vestments have survived from the period. The typical Serbian costume consists of shirts, trousers, skirts, sleeveless coats called jeleks, ordinary coats, jubun, socks, belts and headgear, often called oglavja. The trousers are believed to hail from the pre Slavic Balkan era, while the woolen cord ornaments have a Thracian, Illyrian origin. The designs of civil clothes were developed from ancient times, to Roman then Byzantine, and later under Turkish (Oriental) influence, and in towns of the Pannonian area and the Adriatic coast, primarily under European influence. Under the influence of the mentioned factors certain common wearing elements within the wider cultural and geographic zones were created, such as Adriatic, Alpine, Dinaric, Morava, Pannonian, and Vardar zones (or styles) with their own particularities. In the wake of Serbia's newfound autonomy following the Second Serbian Uprising, there was a push among Serbian intellectuals from the Austrian Empire to Europeanize the Serbian city costume. The transition (which is most evident in Serbian portrait painting from the mid 19th century) to western attire took several decades and wealthy Serbian men continued to wear full Ottoman costume with turbans on formal occasions well into the 1860s. By the late 1870s, the male Serbian urban costume favored by officials and the mercantile class (when not wearing increasingly popular Western fashion) still consisted principally of braided Turkish cut breeches, an embroidered vest, and a striped cashmere or silk shawl, several yards in length, wrapped around the torso in which ornamental pistols and swords were placed. In winter time, this costume was complemented by a long, fur bordered pelisse. In the southern regions of Serbia, men at the time frequently wrapped a white cloth around their fezzes, similarly to their Albanian neighbors.

In Serbia, Serb folk dress are divided into several groups: Dinaric, Morava, Pannonian, and Vardar styles, all of which can also be placed under regional groups such as: Northern Serbia (which mostly includes Vojvodina), Central Serbia, Eastern Serbia, Western Serbia, and Southern Serbia (which mostly includes Kosovo and Metohija).

The Serb folk dress of Northern Serbia, or Vojvodina, are part of the Pannonian style. As part of a cultural zone with Croatia, Hungary and Romania, the attire has likeness to those in adjacent Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian provinces (there are also some small Bunjevac, German, Slovakian, and Rusyn cultural influences in areas where those minorities live). They also take some small influences from the Morava, and Dinaric styles.

The fertile Plain of Vojvodina provided not only grain, but also abundantly provided raw materials for making human clothing. The Pannonian climate, with long and hot summers and very harsh and windy winters, also conditioned the way of its inhabitants. The main raw materials for the production of the old Serbian costume were vegetable fibers of mullet, flax and cotton. In addition to vegetable fibers, wool, lamb and sheep fur were used for winter clothing, which was favored by basic industries. 19th century clothing made in domestic handicrafts was of simple design. Basic linen was characterized by straight cut pieces of clothing, the width of which was molded to the body by folding fabrics. By adopting more sophisticated tailoring in upper garments, which came to Serbian costume through the influence of urban and central and western European fashion, especially Viennese, sewing of such costume was left to the tailors. Village dressmakers introduced new fashion elements into folk costume, which influenced and contributed to the rapid loss of Serbian folk costume in Vojvodina. Women braid their hair, placing their long braids around the head which is then hold by toothpick clamps and adorned by jewelry with flower motifs. The shirt is made of linen or knitted fabric. The upper part is sewn to the lower. Around the neck, around the sleeves and at the bottom of the hem, the shirt is closed and festooned with a lace of thicker cotton. A jelek vest is placed over the shirt. Long pleated skirts can be in a variety of different colors (often in a kilt like pattern), most common ones are clean white or black. Skirt embroidery is stitched at the lower parts of the dress, usually in vibrant floral patterns. The apron is the most beautiful part of the costume, every girl and woman hand make it for themselves, which leads to many variants in terms of technique and vividness. Over the apron and shirt but and under vest a belt called a kolan is fastened. The belt tied with beads and multicolored buttons with pafts, metal buckles that close under the breast. Ducats and other jewelry cover half the breasts. In more common Šumadija dress, women wear a vibrantly colored cloth around the waist instead (commonly red). The socks are knitted and patterned in colorful wool with floral ornaments. Flax and hemp have grown well in this area and have been one of the main foundations of homework. In this area, all the techniques of weaving (square weaving, kneeling, quilting, embroidery and knitting) were developed. The sleeves, aprons, zbubins, rugs in ornamentation are dominated by geometric shapes – rhombuses, squares, crosses, stylized flowers and twigs. Besides simple rhombus, meander is one of the most popular motifs of textile folk crafts. In an elaborate scale of handicrafts, the dominant place is occupied by the manufacture of rugs, which were usually two faced, woven on a horizontal break by two techniques – squatting and kneeling.

The Serb folk dress of Southern Serbia, or Kosovo and Metohija, are divided into three groups: the Dinaric, Morava, and Vardar styles. As part of a cultural zone with Albania and North Macedonia, the attire has likeness to those in adjacent Albanian and Macedonian provinces, such as jelek, zubun, anterija, opanak, gunj, and fez instead of šajkača.