Celebrating International Identity Through Fashion

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From http://www.avirtualdominica.com/trad_dress.htm:

They had a sort of chart in their system of dressing, for matching foulards and madras headkerchiefs
 with the dress to be worn, so that if, for instance a woman wished to wear a dress in which yellow was the predominant colour, she would wear a blue foulard with a mouchoir of yellow mixed with red. There were also mixed ruled regarding the colours the colours used by people of different shades of complexion so that negresse, capresse, chabin, or mulatress would each look their very best. Many will agree in saying that our native dress can hold its own anywhere in the world when worn with pride and distinction.

In present times, Irish dancers are the best example to witness the traditional clothing of Ireland. In the early 1800’s female dancers wore ordinary peasant dresses often embellished with ribbons formed into flowers or crosses. The crimson homespun skirt reached till the ankles worn with a simple black bodice. From the late 1800’s onwards, pipers wore the kilt and from about 1910 male dancers began to wear this form of costume. During this period the typical female dance costume consisted of a hooded cloak over a white dress with a sash.

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Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for “fifth of May”) is a Mexican civic holiday held on May 5 that commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at theBattle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín.  It is celebrated primarily in the state of Puebla and in the United States. While Cinco de Mayo sees limited significance in Mexico itself, the date is observed nationwide mostly in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. Mexicans and Latinos living in California during the American Civil War are credited with being the first to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in the United States. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day, the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! =)

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(More beautiful photos of embroidered pattu-langa here!)

The culture, religion, languages spoken and attire of the people of India are as diverse as the landscape of this vast country. Due to its diversity this cultural hub does not have just one dress, which can be called as the National Dress or Indian Dress. If in northern part we find more of the Muslim influence, in the southern part of India Dravidian style of costumes dominate.

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Apart from the national flag, Kenya is yet to have a national dress that cuts across its diverse ethnic divide. With each of the more than 42 ethnic communities in Kenya having its own traditional practices and symbols that make it unique, this is a task that has proved elusive in the past. However, several attempts have been made to design an outfit that can be worn to identify Kenyans, much like the Kente’ cloth of Ghana.

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Sources: One, Two

Image sources:
One, Two, Three, Four, Five

Vietnamese national women’s dress includes a long, high-necked silk tunic that is slit at the sides to the waist. Here the solid-color, pastel tunics are worn over matching full-length skirts, common to northern Vietnam, but they also are worn over white or black silk pants in the central and southern regions. The costume is called áo dài (pronounced “ow zai”).

This costume actually was created in the 1920s, during the period of French rule, when Vietnamese nationalists envisioned a pan-Vietnam costume that would contrast with both European clothes and the varied ethnic and status-differentiated clothing that existed throughout the regions of precolonial Vietnam.