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Peasant clothes
In Muscovy Russia the female suit was extremely colourful and picturesque. It had many features in common with men clothes, though high-necked laid on clothes was preferable. The design of ladies’ wear consisted of front and back parts cut out of straight pieces of fabric flaring to hem due to gussets. The width of ladies’ wear at hem as well as men's one could be up to 6 m. wide. The armhole line was straight, the sleeve had no ovality and could be different in various kinds of clothes.
The straight shirt from a cotton or silk fabric with narrow long sleeves served as underwear to noble women and as overclothes to peasant women as well. Sarafans sewed from linen with silks or brocade were worn over shirts. The front part of a sarafan was decorated with a vertical gold laced stripe and copper or tin buttons. It hung by narrow short straps and was girded under breast.
Besides sarafans Russian women went on wearing old clothes like zapona, nagrudnik, poneva and perednik .
Dushegreya was ladies’ short loose overclothes which hung by straps like sarafan. The frontparts of dushegreya were straight, its backpart had tubular folds. The neck was V-like and the straps were attached straight to it.
Barynyas and dvoryankas (noble women of high society) were obliged to wear a dense layer of whitewash and blush, densely drawn eyebrows and eyelashes, otherwise they would be considered indecent to appear in public. The German historian and traveller Oleary tells in his “Description of travel to Moskovia” that boyarynya Cherkesskaya refused to be bleached and rouged as she had very beautiful natural complexion. The wives of other boyars were indignant of that and persuaded her not to neglect the national tradition.
The most wide-spread jewellery were necklaces, ear rings, rings and perstens, bracelets, pins.
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