A Study on the Kaftan Style in Asia

아시아 Kaftan양식에 관한 연구

This thesis is a study on the kaftan styles iin Asia. The purpose of he study was to examine the origin o the kaftan concentrating on the history and cultural backgrounds of nomads in he Western Central and North Eastern Asia. Secondly for more thorough study and expla-nation on how these kaftans contributed to East-West trade along the silk road. wall paintings and miniature illuminations along Oasis roads persia and Saracen period were compared, Also real kaftans were compared and analyzed the characteristics of Western (Turkey palestine) Central(Kazakistan Uz-bekistan Tadzhistan Qyrgyztan Turkmenistan) and the North Eastern Asian(Mongol) area. Thirdly an attempt has been made to provide the North Eastern Asian(Mongol) area. Thirdly an attempt has been made to provide the style classifications according to their peculiarities of the various kaftans as well as how kaftan gave important influences on custumes of different religious sects. The kaftan is a long coat-like garment with front openings fastened with long sash having an extra long sleeves which were worn by middle and high class nomadics throughout the West Central and North Eastern Asia This type of kaftans were a basic clothing for nomadics since they were constantly moving fromone to another areas on their horse back riding. They also wore tight trousers with boots. Kaftans seem to be originated from nomads of Steppe around B.C. 800 On B. C 400 west asian areas such as Solokha Kul-oba Kulogan had pictures sculptues on vases showing kaftans of half coat type length with front opening tied with band. Also the materials used were the products of animals such as wool or felt with animal designs showing Scythian nomads. In the North Eastern Asia Hsiung-Nu were active in Kazakha North Altai and Mongol The Clothing and fabrics exfavated near Noin-ula Pazyrik showed many samples of kaftan with trousers with other interment be-longings with a corpse around B.C 300 to A. D 100 when trades along the silk roads were proven by many historians Kaftans excavated in this area wore red front opening silk materials which suggesting settling down of nomads. in he central Asia Dol-gull near Altai mountain area were mainly miners who later had many trades with Persia and Bizantine. After Dol-gull Bezeklik temple Samarkant Kizil cow Budda sculture wall paintings of Astana tomb showed typical kaftan of this re-gion. These were both hip covered length as well as long coat with narrow sleeves. Es-pecially they had different color band fron the main kaftan with grogeously and splendously designed silk. In perusia during A. D 1400 to 1600 minia-ture illumination showed kaftan as a high class symbol more than clothing purpose. They had best quality silk with extra long sleeves draping and had a layers of kaftans one on top of anther as a symbol of wealth These Kaftans with different colors and designs were even more beautiful with their effective combinations and contrast of colors. On the other hand the lower class common people and servants wore simple kaftan with the front part of the kaftan were slipped into the belt in order to be more active and con-venient to work, The real kaftans discovered at Topkapi Saray palace of Turkey from A. D 1300 to 1900 were also compared. These kaftans were very numerous in numbers as well as designs The materials and designs used were also vari-ous such as Chinese to Italian silk. The shaped and pattern itself were not much different from the previous nomad's Kaftans. The Palestian kaftans remained were from the beginning of 19th and 20th century. Since this area is hot and dry desert they used black and navy blue colors mostly in order to exclude the sun lights. The patterns used were similar to Nomads and Bedouin with cross stiches and patch work decorations. In the central Asia they had similar life style and natural environmental cnditions with Turkish tribe which resulted in similar kaftan styles as nomads. Mongols conserved basic patterns of kaftan since Cinggis Khan with deep folding in order to keep warm. At last the kaftans studided in this thesis were classified in to four such as half coat long coat jacket and vest style. A pattern used in the Central Asia were zigzag and ani-mal design whereas in the West Asia were floral plant arabesk and circle pattern. As I discussed previously kaftan styles of nomads in the Asia maintained its basic pat-tern throughout the history except slight changes in color gusset sleeve shapes. These slight changes were made according to the need to adapt the need of environmental natu-ral conditions, The reason for aboriginality of kaftan in Asia was its simplicity and con-venience Most interesting fact is that for all these years Mongols are still wearing kaftan in their life ensuring us that they art the preserves of old kaftan. Since this thesis dealt enormous Asian regions I had a limitation of not being able to cover the Far Esatern asian areas such as Korea China and Japan how these kaftans were influenced in their clothing history as well as Eastern and Western culture. This topic along with the studies on materials and designs of patterns of kaftan will be another research project in the future.