Oltenia

Folk costumes

The folk costume is a part of the larger sphere of the traditional Romanian costume, whose unity is obvious in the way it is cut, in the decoration and in the colouring. The folk costume is still worn in the Romanian villages. The embroidery has a certain significance that differs from one region to another.

The men and the women do not have the same embroidery or the same cut of their folk shirts. In some regions of the country it is strictly kept the colors combinations imposed by the tradition. In Transylvania, in the villages from Marginimea Sibiului are famous for the folk costume full of charm and colour. Centres known here for the beauty of the folk costume are at Saliste (20 km distance from Sibiu), Marpod (Romanian and Saxon traditional clothes), Rasinari. In Harghita, the folk costume is kept even today in its original form, and it is distinguished among the different minorities that live in the villages from this region: Romanian, Szekler, and Hungarian. For their traditional folk costumes beautifully decorated, remarkable are the villages from Gorj County.

The embroidery of the traditional clothes from Arad (Buteni) uses as predominant colors: black and red. In Oasul Land, the folk creation is preserved in its original forms, the color that prevails in the traditional costume, being green. The folk costume from Moldavia, excels from the point of vue of the decoration through simplify and sobriety, the main colors being reduced most of the times to red, black and white, although more recently other colors have been added (combination of orange and blue, in the North of Moldavia). The variety of the national costume marked by specific features concerning the decoration and the cut is also manifested from the point of view of the structure that differs from a region to another.

Folk costumes from Transilvania