The Azerbaijani girls and the dream wedding

Marriageable Tat girl in traditional dress. Lahij, Azerbaijan

First published in the blog of the author.

Apparently, Azerbaijani girls are increasingly looking for foreign husbands in order to leave the country. The reasons are varied, including the desire for wealth and the Western way of life, as well as a general lack of men, who emigrate in large numbers, and also to create a better future for themselves. Traditions have always set tight constraints on Azerbaijani women, forbidding them to marry men of other nationalities. Fortunately, the newer generation is held back much less by the rules, and the number of marriages between foreign men and Azerbaijani women – which are allowed to be concluded only in the Palace of Happiness of Baku, the “Mukhtarov” – is slowly rising.

Flower girls in Baku

Around the countryside, especially in the most isolated villages, however, we have the impression that the number of men is much higher than that of women. And that weddings must be one of the more profitable businesses, if the shops offering accessories for the most beautiful day come one after another in such large numbers.


When speaking of weddings, do not think of something that cries out for a wedding planner, as in the West. Weddings here are home-made affairs, and the bride, like Cinderella, switches from the broom to the prom dress in an instant. The predominant color is red, and a minimalist style has no chance here. This color triumphantly marches through the dresses, the decorations, the centre-pieces. All is tulle and sequins, not always of the best quality, but enough to dazzle the eye. The couples are usually very young, between fifteen and twenty. The ceremony takes place in two stages. The bride’s farewell is mostly low-key, and the real show is for the groom, which flows into the wedding proper, with long tables, merrymaking, drinking, music and dance.


A community hall with no unnecessary luxury is rented out for the occasion. At the end of the celebration, the whole village gathers together, and their gaze follows the car of the young couple until it disappears around the bend of the valley.

Xinaliq. After the bride leaves the village

Xinaliq, ballroom

In the ballroom there remain only a few melancholic guests, as well as the confetti-strewn floor. This the bride herself will clean up when she comes back to the village and doffs her festive outfit, again becoming Cinderella. As foretold by the showcase of the wedding accessories shop, where someone, with good intuition, has left a bucket and a broom alongside the lavish garments.

Sunday best

Festive Mass in Bârsana/Barcánfalva. The monastery complex, built in 1993 but referring to many centuries of tradition, is the idealized re-creation of a never-existed prosperity. Its church tower is the second tallest wooden building in Europe, preceding the 18th-century Șurdești/Dióshalom church. The mass of the faithful is constantly flowing around the entrance, from inside two nuns are singing on a penetrating, ringing voice.

Just thirty years ago, they still largely wore homespun clothes and plaited shoes in these parts, the spinning reel could not fall off the hands of women for any moment, the home production of tissues – enforced by poverty and isolation – gave a lot of work. The accessible prices of ready-to-wear clothes have changed a lot in everyday clothing, which, on the other hand, made the pieces of traditional costume an identity element to be consciously retained.


The general rise of nationalism brought back folklore elements into street fashion in Hungary, too, but here, in Maramureș they – not accidentally – appear more organic and continuous than the Matyó embroidery on the Budapest asphalt. Depending on the quicker or slower pace of labor market mobility, the ethnic wear is increasingly limited to the festive occasions. On these occasions, however, even those put on a piece of traditional costume or one referring to it, who do not wear it any more in everyday life.

Kerchiefs, kerchiefs, kerchiefs,

in all quantities, sizes, shapes, colors. The very first thing one encounters when exiting the arrival hall of the Istanbul airport is the poster of the Armine fashion company showing a very pretty young woman with a kerchief. And from then on the whole city is full of little, small, huge and giant posters, and on the posters wonderful women with kerchiefs. And not only on the posters. By the time I arrived to the inner city, I was completely enthusiastic. Kerchiefs became a fashion in Istanbul.

Der makām-ı Şūri Semâ’i (Mss. D. Cantemir 256). Savall: Istanbul, 3'33"

Four years ago we set out from here to Persia where I was completely fascinated by what an incredibly sophisticated fashion can be pursued with the strictly regulated black chador. The kerchief costume of Istanbul, on the contrary, had not made any particular impression on me, and it did not seem to be very different from what is usual at us.


Now, however, it is immediately striking how many women wear a kerchief. Not only the elder and the poor, but also the young, the obviously affluent and highly educated women wear it in mass, from the veil covering even the eye to the highly artistic and extravagant compositions. And they seem to find a great joy in it

Among the young people it is undoubtedly the Armine company to determine the trend: discreet, subtle pastel tones and floral patterns, natural, soft materials. They do not sell only kerchiefs, but whole collections, dresses, accessories, everything harmonized with everything.

In addition, there are many, not only young people but also elder women who, taking full advantage of the wide range of possibilities, wear similarly sophisticated, but individually configured kerchief and dress compositions.


I guess I have never ever seen a fashion which would have showed in such a fabulous wealth and diversity in how many ways one can be pretty and feminine.

Kimono

Sergey Smirnov (1953-2006): Woman in kimono

If Petersburg and kimono, then Loft. There they opened on Sunday the new scene of the traveling exhibition “1001 kimonos”. This imposing private collection has gone around Russia since last autumn. From the material of the exhibition covering the period from the early 18th to the 21th century now we only want to present a group homogeneous in time and subject, from the 1930s.



The center of the group is the kimono embroidered with the portrait of Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) on horseback and with the weapons of the warlord on the sleeves. The figure of this national hero was a usual motif of boy’s kimonos. The other, cheaper, industrially printed boy’s and man’s kimonos of the period vary on this motif, the contemporary national heroes and their weapons.

Boy’s kimono

Boy’s kimono

The visitors of the exhibition cannot decide whether on the second kimono the Japanese infantry assaults an enemy tank like kamikazes, for the machine gun of the tank turns towards them. However, weapon experts point out that the picture is a true representation of the Japanese tank I-Go, introduced in 1931, which also had a gun on the back. Just as the battleship above it is also a faithful image of the Nagato-Mutsu cruiser.


The two boy’s kimono hang on the sides of a pure white man’s kimono which is traditionally  worn only once in a life, on the occasion of seppuku, ritual suicide.

The two clothes belonging to one of the boy’s kimonos

Sleeveless child’s kimono

Man’s kimono

Boy’s kimono

Sleeveless boy’s kimono

Boy’s kimono

Boy’s kimono

Boy’s kimono

Chuya-obi with the representation of an air battle

Kamikaze airplane above Mount Fuji. New Year’s postcard, 1937

Update:

Bad Guide has thought futher on the post, and has compared the involuntary irony of these “sweetened” images of war to the voluntary irony of James Rosenquist’s installation F-111 made during the Vietnam war, on which the pictures of American prosperity fuse with the war cuts running uninterruptedly in the background.

James Rosenquist: F-111 (detail). 1964-65