These photos of a woman's and a man's wedding costume date back to the turn of the century to Torky, in the Nadsjannja region very near the city of Peremyshl, just west of the western border of Ukraine. At the time of their origin, the area was part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire, but later became Poland. The costumes, however, are typical of ethnic Ukrainians who live in that area.

The woman's wedding costume consists of a blouse with embroidery down the sleeves, down the front, and on the collar. The blouse embroidery is identical to that on the man's costume. There's also a vest; a skirt; a pleated apron; and a ribboned headpiece.

The man's costume is unusual in that there is no embroidered shirt, but separate pieces intended to be attached to an ordinary man's white shirt by metal hooks and eyes. These heavily embroidered pieces are a collar; a bib-like shirt cover piece; cuffs; and a waistband. They are shown close-up and large in order to show the embroidery detail and the clever way they are designed to attach.

The photos shown below were contributed by the grandson of the wedding couple. According to his mother, who immigrated to the United States in 1912: "there were people in the town who did this sort of embroidery work," and the owner explains that "one technique that they used was to put a piece of canvas over the material to be embroidered in order to keep the material from warping during the process. That way, the completed product would have to be nice, straight work. At completion, the individual strands of the canvas were then pulled out, leaving the completed work."

Woman's costume: front	Woman's costume: back

For more information, contact David McGlumphy.