Hairstyles and headdresses
The Men cut their hair "in circle" and usually wear moustaches.
Women plaited the hair. Thick plaits were one of the most important criterion of the feminine beauty.
The women wore the capes with richly decorated thin rims, small hats with gold sewing and fine transparent veils. Vaspurakan (western) shawls were very popular among women. They were interesting and were decorated without by turquoise, coral and jewelers.
Men wore the hats of different cuts: east armenians - fur, west – knitted once or woven. In Loria they preferred broad, low and puffed tall fur hats (papakha), Zangezur people - tall fur hats higher, more narrow and furry. In cities people wore high, cylinder looked hats, often made of Bukhara karakul. Tbilissy kinto loved the black cone-shaped tall fur hats with red silk edge - "red pepper".
A wide-spread hats of hemisphere forms without brims, knitted of one-colour wool were popular among the west armenians. A scarves twisted in broad strip were wound on them. Sometimes hats were knitted of varicoloured woolly threads with dominance of red colour, they had the form of truncated cone 15-20 cm height; they were usually worn without a scarf. It Was a rule to wear pointed cone-shaped felt hats, wound them with a black scarf on the top with geometric, vegetable ornament (the last was not so usual) Армянская национальная одежда (костюмы) // [Электронный ресурс] : Веб-портал : «Википедия, свободная нциклопедия». – Режим доступа : http://hy.wikipedia.org/wiki/.
More complex was a feminine headdress, particularly of the east armenians. The married women put on their heads so called "small tower" with the height from 8 till 15-18 cm, made from several layers of paper fabrics glue by flour paste. This "small tower" covered the half of forehead, its front part was usually decorated by the embroidered tape, with geometric or more seldom by vegetable ornament. Under the "small tower" on forehead the ribbon with silver or gold coins was tied, but on both sides of the face through temples were fixed the silver balls, sometimes together with coral, from under could be seen curls. The "small tower" was tied with several white kerchiefs from cotton fabrics. Simultaneously, these kerchiefs covered a neck too. The lower part of the face till nostrils was tight tied with white, and then with coloured, as a rule red or green, shawl, and sometimes there was the third one. The ends of these shawl were tied or clamped on the back of the head. Over the head was covered with one more colour shawl and fixed with silver or gold chain with a hook. This headdress was worn for several days, but during a night the «mutaka» (a roll pillow) was placed under the neck. Women tried to put it off only when there was no men at home; it was impossible to be seen bareheaded.
The west armenian women loved different thin rims («kotik », «vard») with decorations, over which they tossed the cape. The kotik was wooden, rather high, its frontal is trimmed by the velvet, embroidered by pearl (the plot of the traditional embroidery were a vault of heaven the sun and stars). Then to the trimmed part of the kotik the fine silver plates-amulets were sewed. Vard was made from several glue layers of paper fabrics, wrapped by velvet. On its front there was placed a fine embroidery of a paradise garden with flowers and birds, and on its sides were attached big buttons. Under the «vard» on a forehead was hanged up a forehead decoration with two rows of the gold coins and big coin in the centre, but above the temples - a threads of the pearls, finishing fine round gold plate. A bridegroom presented at a day of the wedding a forehead decoration and a necklace of gold coins to his bride.
The Armenian girls, as opposed to married women, wore the multiple pigtails (in west area – more than 40 of them), which they skilfuly lengthened with plaited into woolly thread with fitted to the colour of hair and decorated by the silver ball and tassels. In east Armenia the head of the girl was covered by the shawl, but in west - by felt hat in the form of a fez without a tassel.
Today, the Armenian national cloth exists mostly as theatrical one.
Armenian state national folk dance group
So, from the ancient times to our days the Armenian national costume remained traditional features, although it felt the influence of neighbor peoples and, in its turn, gave some forms to the national clothes of the others. There was a slight difference between eastern and western types of costumes, as well as between costumes from the cities and from the rural areas. However, it is possible to mark main features that unite all types into the whole Armenian national costume. Unfortunately, the modern society has kept it as theatrical one. The development of Armenian national costume at the modern period needs further investigations.
Общие ссылки в тексте отметила только номер 3, 4, 7.
http://hy.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://hayashxar.siti.me/armyanskaya-traditionnaya-odejda.html
3. http://armeniya.do.am/news/armjanskie_nacionalnye_kostjumy/2010-11-28-311
4. http://www.gisher.ru/armyanskiy-nacionalniy-kostyum-t6272.html
5. http://foto.mail.ru/mail/anahit-7373/4577/
6. http://forum.vardanank.org/index.php?showtopic=181272
7. http://arvest.armenia.ru/2009/11/12/1532/armyanskiy-natsionalnyiy-kostyum/