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The general features of Russian national dress were formed during the life time of many generations. Their peculiarities corresponded to the appearance, the way of life and the traditional occupation of Russian people.
The conditions of the historical development since the XII - XIII centuries have defined the most typical division of Russian dress into the Northern and the Southern types. In the XIII - XV centuries the Northern areas (Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Velikij (Great) Ustyug, Novgorod, Vladimir, etc.) unlike the Southern ones were not ruined by attacks of the nomads.
Aesthetic ideal of beauty and the feature of a dress
The beauty of ancient Russians enraptured the Europeans and the Asians. Ancient travellers, people of various tastes and notions of beauty, describing the Russians necessarily marked their height, special stateliness, white skin with bright redness in their cheeks and beautiful fair hair. An Arabian traveller and writer of the first half of the X century Ahmet Ibn-Fadlan, describing Russian merchants who came to the tsar of volgan Bulgarians, noticed: "They look like palm trees, ruddy and beautiful".
The well-known Venetian Marko Polo (the XIII century) describes the inhabitants of the big northern country of Russia in such a way: "They are very beautiful people, white and tall; their women are also white and tall with blond and long hair".
High criteria of beauty from ancient times define an aesthetic national ideal, which is glorified in bylinas and national songs.
The silhouette of the old Russian dress, the form of details, decorations, fabrics and rich ornaments used in a dress, the combination of colours helped to emphasize the attractive stateliness and the dignity of bearing of Russian people.
The most general features which characterize the dress of this historical period are the following:
A static, straight lines of a dress flaring to hem and pagoda sleeves;
The general view of a dress is symmetrical; even if there is some asymmetry in the form of a dress or in the way of wearing it (krozno, kosovorotka, feryaz) its composition is balanced and steady;
The usage of decorative patterned fabrics with the effect of gold and silver and with an ornamental design;
Trimming with embroidery and beading, fur, fabrics of different colours;
The creation of a dynamic form due to contrast of colours;
The importance of a headdress in the composition of a dress.
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