The costume had to play up the beauty of Karakalpak women by contrasting it with men’s modest dignity. Flashy and conspicuous, it also sought to distract attention from the woman and shield her from unkind looks.
The female costume marked age characteristics more clearly and conformed semantically to the most important phases of the Karakalpak woman’s life: virginhood, marriage, motherhood and old age. Everything in these clothes – from the color gamut and ornaments to fabrics to headgears – tells the story of a woman, her origin, family, occupation and status.
You will find more examples of national Uzbek clothes in the book-album "Traditional Uzbek costume on materials of museum and private collections of Uzbekistan (Part 2)" (volume XLIX) from the series "Cultural legacy of Uzbekistan in the world collections".
The general sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.