Visible Cultural Heritages: Traditional Costumes of Romania and Japan.
This exhibition introduces the subject of traditional costumes in the context of two very different cultures, Romanian and Japanese, and focuses on the complexity of textile materials and related technologies pertaining to each culture.
Seeing the costumes side by side of two countries geographically distant from each other, exposing the differences between the two clothing cultures, we wonder what distinctive evolution produced these characteristics in each country.
Europe’s fascination with the unknown territory they called the Orient started in very early centuries. Explorers, merchants, and missionaries traveled far to discover the East and to seek trade contacts. Japan’s first encounter with Europe was in 1542, when shipwrecked Portuguese sailors brought in their culture unexpectedly. After this, Japan traded with Portugal, England, Spain, and the Netherlands until the early 17th century, when the Japanese Shogunate, in fear of being colonized by the Europeans, locked the country down, forced foreigners out of Japan, and limited trade to Chinese and Dutch merchants. This isolation lasted for over 200 years, until 1853, when American warships led by Commodore Matthew Perry sailed to Japan and threatened to attack if the Shogun did not open Japan to trade with the West.
Fibers and fabrics from România and Japan
View from the exhibition—Romanian and Japanese costumes
Merchants’ Apron
Japan, 20th century
Muzeul Textilelor Collection
Working Cămăși
Hartagani, România
Muzeul Textilelor Collection
By contrast, the Romanian culture developed in a territory positioned between the Orient and the Occident. For economic and political reasons, for centuries, traders and invaders crossed Romanian territory, leaving their mark on the culture. People living in remote areas, however, developed a textile home production based on available natural resources, including wool, hemp, linen, and stinging nettle.
In typology, the Romanian costume is aligned with that of the territory surrounding Romania, while the particularities of the costume defined it as Romanian with main characteristics by region, age, and occasions. The Japanese costume, on the other hand, developed on an island, with some early influences from its neighboring countries although hundreds of kilometers away, with textile fibers limited to its natural resources—ramie, hemp, and coarser fibers like wisteria, straw, and alder tree. Silk is still the predominant fiber used in Japanese costume. Sericulture originated in China and traveled across the Asian continent through Korea reaching Japan in the 5th century. Costumes developed particularities by season, marital status, age and occasion.
The categories of social class in both countries were traditionally structured almost similarly, except for the samurai class in Japan, but there were major differences in the way these social classes related to each other, and thus in their impact on the code of dress.
Women’s Cămașa
Dănciulești village, Gorj
Early 20th century
Gift of Rodica Ioana Ghilea
Detaliu din două kimonouri Susomoyo
Japonia, sfârșitul sec. al XX-lea
Colecția Muzeul Textilelor
Detail from two kimono Susomoyo
Japan, end of the 19th century
Muzeul Textilelor Collection
Detail of Cămașa
Oltenia, România, end of the 19th century
Muzeul Textilelor Collection
Gift of Susan Niculescu
In Romania, the ruler and the aristocracy, as well as the wealthier people of the country differentiated themselves from other social classes by wearing luxurious materials produced in specialized centers outside the country, such as expensive silk fabric from Venetian or Bursan workshops.
Craftsmen were a specialized group who made costume items and accessories such as these made of metal and leather. The largest population—free peasants, wore costumes made entirely in the home textile industry, from fiber production to the final products. Rarely producing costumes for other social classes, they assured the best costume production for their family. Holiday costumes particularly were done with great care.
In Japan during the Edo period (1603- 1868)—a feudal society under the Tokugawa shogunate—to promote social stability, the population was divided into four rigid occupational orders that were hereditary: shi-no-ko-sho. And today, even though for almost 3,000 years the Emperor and Imperial Court have been rulers without power, and political affairs have been governed by the administration, as in most cultures, the heritage remains.
The top governing class was the samurai or military, bound tightly by rules, respected but not wealthy. Many worked on the farm in peacetime. The majority of Japanese society, farmers, fishermen, and outdoor workers, were in the second rank. Sometimes they were drafted as low ranking solders when war broke out. They paid tax in the form of their harvested rice or grains. The third rank, craftsmen—productive highly-skilled specialists—were responsible for textile production. Merchants, lowest in rank, were the wealthiest. In this divided society, people made clothing symbolic of their rank and type of work. Everyone raised silkworms. Women commonly did the weaving at home. Farmers made working wear out of straw.
Furisode, Detail
Japan, first half of the 20th century
Muzeul Textilelor Collection
Gift of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Cămașa, Detail
Muscel, România, early 20th century
Muzeul Textilelor Collection
Gift of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Man’s Cămașa, Detail
Banat, România, early 20th century
Muzeul Textilelor Collection
Ștergar de Diver and Priest Robe, Detalii
Banat, România and Japonia, early 20th century
Muzeul Textilelor Collection
Priest’s Robe, gift of Midori Sato
This exhibition is co-curated by Florica Zaharia and guest curator, Midori Sato. The objects belong to the Muzeul Textilelor, Băița, and to the collections of Midori Sato, and Kristine Kamiya in New York.
Distaff and Spindles – Instruments of the Threads from Romania and Neighboring Areas
Distaffs and handspindles, the instruments which help the transformation of fibers into threads by spinning, has been used since ancient times. Spinning, consist in continuously drawing down a bunch of fibers from a bundle of fibers, and simultaneously twisting them in a Z or S direction. With a help of a handspindle fibers are twisted into thread, then wounded around the spindle.
There are two directions of hand spinning, one called tors răsucit in Z direction, and the other tors îndrugat in S direction. In both methods, while hand spinning, left hand supplies the fibers—thus controlling the thickness of the yarn, and the right hand is twisting the spindle.
In general Z-twist spun is the method used for spinning long fibers into thin yarn, highly or over-twisted, uniform in diameter, and able to stand warp tension. During spinning the spindle is in a vertical position with the sharpened end up and is held by spinners between thumb and first two fingers at the interior side, and forefinger and middle fingers on the outside. The spindle is moved by pushing or rolling it in a clockwise direction with the thumb and the forefinger, while the middle and ring fingers hold it in place.
The S-twist spun is the method used for spinning short fibers into weft yarn less twisted and not strong enough to be used for warp. In this method, the spindle position is almost horizontal. With the spinning end of the spindle pointing away from the body, the spinners hold the other end of it between the thumb and four fingers of the right hand. To spin, the spindle is rolled counterclockwise with the thumb. The rolling and pushing movements with the thumb and four fingers are continuous.
The distaff could be a simple stick approximately 150 cm. long, and 3 cm. in diameter, often made of filbert wood, although there are known exceptionally elaborated and beautifully decorated pieces. Distaffs classification includes: hand-held distaffs, waistband distaffs, long knee-hold distaff, long free-standing distaffs set into a base, free-standing distaffs on a bench or a chair, and a L-shaped distaff on which the person who spin sit on it to stabilizing it during spinning.
The spindle had several transformations during its evolution including: the single cross-arm spindle called tocălie; the drop spindle called în Romanian drugă or răsucă; and the carved spindle, called fus. The tocălie and the drugă were used in Romania until the beginning of the twentieth century. The carved spindle is a short stick, approximately 40 cm. long, carved out of one piece of willow wood thicker in the center, and with one sharp end and the other conical.
In time distaff and handspindle’s silhouettes evolved into an incredible variety, some of which we are displaying in this exhibition. The objects included in this exhibition are from the Muzeul Textilelor collection.
Distaff
Distaff
Spindles
<= Distaff detail from Ținutul Pădurenilor
Distaff detail from Russia =>
Pricoița of the Pădureni People—Ancestral Technology and Aesthetics
The Pădurenii of Hunedoara County are a group of Romanian population who inhabit the peaks of the western slope of the Poiana Ruscăi Mountains, a region located between the rivers Mureș and Cerna, an area named Ținutul Pădurenilor. These circa forty villages inhabited by the Pădureni have a remarkable history, which preserved the particularities of their ancestral culture for millennia.
The cerga, in Ținutul Pădurenilor named pricoiță, is a dense blanket, thick but fluffy. This traditional textile object which has a precise function is the carrier of a complex textile technology which involves animal breeding for wool, selecting and processing the fibers, weaving, and controlling the energy of water. Pricoița is the quintessence of the relationship between the artistic creation and the technological process used in the traditional textiles home industry, and the necessities imposed by the climate conditions of the mountains where people has been living for centuries. Also, pricoița defines the human relationship between the various participants to the technological process of making this particular kind of blanket.
The pricoița’s felting process of the woven pricoița was necessary for producing a warm and impermeable material. The wool fiber from the area of the Carpathian Mountains is coarse, straight with just a few crimps, a large medulla, and the outer scales positioned closely to the fiber’s cortex. These characteristics make felting difficult. Therefore, the felting process was possible only after a prior weaving made specifically to allow felting. For the Pădureni, the process of weaving and felting pricoița was part of the traditional life style, integrated into the continuous flow of activities throughout the year. The process started in spring with sheep shearing, and finished a year later when the woven material was felted. During this long process of producing pricoița, some of the technological steps were essential: sorting wool fibers by quality, spinning specifically for warp and weft, warping through a low-densiy reed, the weaving and the felting process. This ancestral technology was specific to other population groups who lived in similar geo-climatic conditions in the Carpathien Mountains.
These objects have a particular aesthetic resulting from the rhythm of the repeating motifs, which were made by using contrastanting natural colors, white and black or grey wool, or of vibrant colors, especially red and blue dyed wool, woven on the natural white wool background. The chromatic range modified and amplified by the invention of the synthetic dyes transformed the aesthetic of pricoița. Nevertheless, the ancestral technological process of making pricoița remained the same. The objects included in this exhibition exemplify the aestethic transformation of this group of textiles, as well as the technological transformation specific to pricoița’s production. The objects included in this exhibition are from the Muzeului Textilelor collection.
For viziting the exhitibition please make an appointment at +40(0) 728 840 032.
The exhibition’s catalog is made possible by the Salbek Castle Association. For more information please call +40(0)772.063.116 or +40(0)771.697.315.
