Ukrainian female costume: overview

This post is starting a series of posts on Ukrainians traditional clothing.

What we usually see now as Ukrainian ethnic costume was formed mostly in 17-18 centuries, with a certain elements from 19 centuries.

The very core of Ukrainian costume, either male or female, is an embroidered shirt.
It utilizes a smart cut with all the square pieces, so there are as little leftovers as possible.

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This is the most typical example of the cut, but there are variations.
Even everyday shirts were embroidered, and the holiday shirts were a true works of art, with many days of labor put into them.

Ukrainian shirt is usually long and reaches down to the ankles. Not only the hem and the sleeves are embroidered, but the bottom as well.

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Another necessary piece of clothing is a skirt. It could be a rectangular piece of fabric folded in two and wrapped around the waist, with full opening at the front or at the back - "plakhta". They were often woven with square patterns.
Such skirt was kept in place with a woven textile sash - "kraika".

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Or it was a gathered skirt, made out of a plain or patterned fabric, and often adorned with ribbons at the bottom.

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Skirts were often a bit shorter than the shirts, so the bottom embroidery of the shirt is visible. But urban fashion brought a longer skirts, so there is variety as well.

Women often wore long vests with wide pleated bottom and embroidered front - "kersetka".

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Those vests had an intricate cut of many parts:

With all hard work that women did, they needed an apron. It was usually a bit shorter than the skirt, and holiday aprons also were heavily adorned. They could be embroidered:

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Or woven:

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Young females wore several kinds of wreaths on their heads, made out of real flowers, silk and paper artificial flowers, wax, wool and any other materials available:

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Wreaths were often adorned with wide long ribbons:

Or it could be a single ribbon:

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Married women hid their hair under the cap - "ochipok".

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Or under a handkerchief (yeah, famous Eastern European "babushka style"):

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Woman wore multilayered necklaces. The wealthier the woman was - the more layers she had. The most sought after were a coral necklaces, but any kind of gems were welcomed: pearls, amber, silver and golden beads, glass and ceramic beads, etc. Loops were added to silver coins, so they could be worn too.


Typical footwear of Ukrainian woman is a pair of leather boots. Wealthier ones could afford red boots, others wore black and brown boots.

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Also leather shoes were worn:

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In summer women of rural areas went barefooted:

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I made two typical Ukrainian costumes for my BJD dolls: one for a young girl. another one for married woman.


I could write a separate post on every piece of clothing listed above. Which one would you like to see first: a shirt, a necklace, or maybe a footwear? Please write in comments!