Dress in Tibet, 1920s
The costume of the men is much the same throughout Tibet. In women’s dress, on the other hand, there are great differences between various parts of the country. The dress…
From: 1925 C.E. To: 1926 C.E.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From We Tibetans: An Intimate Picture, by a Woman of Tibet, of an Interesting and Distinctive People, by Rin-Chen Lha-Mo, 1926.
The costume of the men is much the same throughout Tibet. In women’s dress, on the other hand, there are great differences between various parts of the country. The dress of Kham differs in many ways from that of Lhasa, and even in Kham there are many local divergencies.
The main garment in Tibetan costume is a cloak, very capacious and with wide sleeves. This is caught in at the waist with a broad belt of cloth, woven of various coloured threads with red predominant. These cloaks are of sheepskin or of woollen cloth or of silk. Silk cloaks are often trimmed around the collar with fur—otter or leopard. The sheepskin cloak has the skin on the outside and the fur on the inside.
The cloak may be worn long or short simply by adjusting it at the belt, Women wear it down to the ankle, men to just above the knee.
Both men and women wear high boots, up to the knee. These may be of leather or of felt. Women mostly wear the latter kind. These felt boots are coloured, the lower part white, then red, then green, Leather boots and felt boots are alike lined with woollen cloth. The soles are always of leather. There are no heels.
Inside the cloak both men and women wear shirts of cotton or of silk, Often the shirt has an embroidered collar, and a broad strip of embroidery across the chest. Men’s shirts are slightly higher in the collar than women’s. Trousers may be of cloth or of silk, and, in the case of men, of sheepskin also.
Head-gear is varied. Many people wear turbans of silk or of cotton, usually red with men and black with women. Tam-o’-shanters lined with lamb-skin, fur-lined felt caps, hats made of a single fox-skin, mouth to tail, are worn by men and women alike. Some men nowadays even wear foreign felt hats imported from abroad, and many men and women wear no head-gear at all.
Women in gala attire wear no head-gear, while men’s gala hats are pancake shaped with embroidered rims and red fluffing.
Most of the men on occasion, and invariably when travelling, carry swords stuck in their sashes. These are made in Derge. The scabbards are often decorated with silver or pewter and sometimes gold filigree work and with corals.
The mode of hair-dress varies greatly from place to place and according to the occasion. Gala hair-dress is different from that of everyday wear. Even the ordinary hair-dress of the women is very elaborate in some districts. Ordinarily, in my own district, we wear our hair in two strands plaited with red silk cord and wound round the head, and the men wear theirs in one plait similarly wound round the head.
Personal ornaments are much worn in Tibet, They are of various kinds; Necklaces of corals, with tasseling of pearls, suspending gold or silver pendants delicately chiselled and inlaid with turquoise. A rich woman in gala attire will perhaps wear three or four of these at the same time. Heavy ear-rings of gold or silver ornamented with corals and turquoise; gold neck-clasps similarly studded; coral and gold buttons; hair clasps or rather rings of gold or silver with corals, and hair-rings of shell; hair-bands worn down the back like plaits, studded with coral and turquoise and amber; girdles of clasps of gold or of silver round the waist, and hung with gold or silver chains reaching down to the hem of the dress; heavy gold or silver bracelets; and finger-rings of gold or silver set with corals and turquoise.
Lha-Mo, Rin-Chen. We Tibetans: An Intimate Picture, by a Woman of Tibet, of an Interesting and Distinctive People. Seeley Service & Co. 1926.
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