COLOURFUL DRESSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1938, Page 8

COLOURFUL DRESSES

COSTUMES IN HUNGARY. BEAUTY OF VILLAGES. One of the villages where Hungarian national costume is seen at its best is Mezokovezd, the centre of the Matyo district, more than 40 miles from Budapest. If you visit Mezokovezd on Sunday afternoon, the inhabitants, who are called Matyos, will be in church. During the service, you ascend a little wooden staircase leading to a gallery and look down on a sight not easily forgotten. Everyone is dressed in brilliant colours —pinks, blues, reds, yellows and greens. The bright colours do not clash, but mingle with each' other like flowers in a garden. The brilliance of the scene might rival a coronation, yet it is like this every Sunday throughout the year. After the, church service, the people parade round the open space outside. The women wear several very wide, bell-shaped skirts. Many skirts are a sign of wealth, and the richest women wear 30 of these pleated garments. The pleats are put in with warm dough, which, when removed, leaves them permanent. Over the skirt is an apron, almost entirely covered with embroidery. Then there is a close-fitting corsage of silk or velvet in bright colours, with short puffed sleeves. The married women wear heavily-fringed silk shawls round their waists. Instead of the “parta,” or headdress, the elder women wear peaked bonnets, also covered with embroidery, but in more sombre colours. The mature women tone down their colour schemes to pale .violet, green, and dark red. Dignified black is the costume of the older generation, but even this is embroidered with black. The clothes worn by the little children are miniature reproductions of their elders’ dress. A collection of costumes in the Matyo museum in Mezokovezd shows how the costume has remained unaltered since the Middle Ages. In the 16th and 17th centuries, during the period of Baroque splendour, it was the custom to present the bridal dress to the church as a souvenir, so that excellent examples have been preserved. Though the costumes are elaborate, they are all hbme made. Even yarn for the embroidery is made at home and dyed with vegetable dyes. The patterns for the embroideries are from the women’s own imaginations. From their own countryside they take the motifs of their designs—roses, hearts, trees and birds. Just give a Matyo girl a piece of paper and she will draw you several charming designs.