Men's Dress in Turkey, 1911
From Turkey and the Turks by Z. Duckett Ferriman, 1911.
Location: Turkey
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 It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.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 Turkey and the Turks by Z. Duckett Ferriman, 1911.
It was at San Stefano, before that pleasant village on the Propontis became historic through the Treaty. The niece of a Persian ambassador at the court of Queen Victoria was narrating her experiences of London. They included a garden-party at Lambeth Palace. When I found myself among the other guests I was astounded and exclaimed, “Why, they are nearly all Turks.”
“The first time I visited the Sublime Porte," I replied, “I was similarly puzzled. I could not rid myself of the impression that I was among English clergymen."
In fact, the official Turk in outward appearance, but for the fez, is an English clergyman, and the latter, given a fez, would be the counterpart of the Turk. The clerical coat, in cut and colour, in the shape of the collar and the arrangement of the buttons, precisely resembles the stambouline, so named from Stamboul, the seat of government, where officials abound. This discreet and sombre garb is worn by all, from the Pasha to the humblest clerk. It is not, perhaps, so general as formerly, when it was the dress of every town Turk pretending to gentility, but it is still rigorously the wear of the official class, and almost every Constantinopolitan Turk who is not an officer is an official.
There is a tendency in these days to escape from it out of office hours, and the younger men affect lounge-suits of tweeds or some light material, invariably of English make among the wealthier class. The bowler or deer-stalker has not followed the tweeds, however. The fez is still universal among civilians, although in the army it has been replaced largely by the kalpak. The prejudice against the hat rests on a religious basis. If the namaz is rightly performed, the forehead must touch the ground. The brim of a hat or the peak of a cap would prevent this, and to remove the head-covering would be an act of extreme disrespect in a house, let alone in a mosque, where it would be blasphemous. Sultan Mahmoud II when he changed the uniform of the soldiers wished to introduce the shako, but on this account his new army would have none of it.
The fez is still universal among civilians and is worn both by officers and men of the navy. The kalpak of the military officers, in grey or black astrakhan, has neither peak nor brim, so no objection can be taken to it. It is not general in the army, where the inverted flower-pot called the fez is now made up in khaki to match the new uniforms. There is less excuse for this ugly and useless form of head-gear than there was before the new regime, since the Ottoman army now contains a large proportion of Christians, to whom the foregoing objection does not apply.
It affords no protection against sun or bad weather, so that nothing could be more unsuited to soldiers. The military authorities appear to have realized this, for they have issued a sort of head-shawl which is twisted round the fez, its ends resembling a pair of rabbits' ears. This is an ungainly affair compared with the turban. But the turban as worn by the Turkish peasant consists of a mere handkerchief bound round the head in a fashion more or less slovenly.
The intricate folds and artistic knottings of the turbans of old, as seen in the museum of ancient costumes at Stamboul, and as carved on the old headstones in every cemetery, find a counterpart in Northern India and Central Asia. In Constantinople one meets them only on the heads of travellers from Bokhara and Samarcand. The Yuruks and Kurds wear voluminous turbans, but they have not the elegance either of India or of the Turkey of bygone times. The ulema and the softas all wear white turbans. They are merely lengths of muslin wound round the fez without any attempt at artistry, but they are a pleasant break in the monotony of the streets, which have been compared to beds of poppies. The individuals composing the throng might be likened to peripatetic claret bottles with red capsules, a less poetic figure, but closer to the reality.
The dervishes are a striking feature: the mevlevi in their tall, sugar-loaf, brimless hats of brown felt, and long-sleeved cloaks of bright hue, olive, saffron, crimson, blue; or the bektashi, with ample turban round the white kalpak and loose flowing mantle.
Occasionally one meets with the savage garb of the fakir, which has been described in a previous chapter. The men from the cities of Central Asia, Bokhara, Samarcand, Kashgar are always to be met with in the streets of Constantinople, but are most numerous in the season of the Hajj, when they pass through on their way to Mecca. They are conspicuous in their jubbeks or long, wadded, loose coats reaching below the knees, which are always made of printed cotton stuffs in variegated colours, and their carefully adjusted turbans wound round conical caps finely embroidered. They wear wide shalvars and high boots, and their waist shawls are of cashmere. The vest is of striped silk or cotton, and the watch is attached to long silver chains worn round the neck.
The Turkomans and the Circassians in their huge sheepskin head-dress and their long grey tunics tight at the waist with skirts falling to the knee were once familiar figures in the motley crowd which streams across the bridge between Galata and Stamboul. They are now seldom seen. When Russia absorbed the Khanates they flocked to Constantinople, but now they are settled in various parts of the interior.
The Albanians are among the most picturesque of the inhabitants of the capital, and they are numerous. They have almost a monopoly in the selling of lemonade and milk products, and their white breeches, baggy at the hips and tight at the ankles, curiously embroidered with black braid, is the most distinctive feature of their dress. They do not always wear the jacket, but invariably the white skull-cap, and those who sell lemonade have gay-hued and voluminous towels swathed around the waist. The costume of the townsfolk of Constantinople is fast degenerating. The shalvar or baggy breech is worn, together with a nondescript European coat, or it is abandoned for trousers, which are cut wide.
The Oriental note in this costume is the absence of a collar and the presence of a sash round the waist. The cotton print shirts affected by the Turks are always pronounced in colour, however dingy the rest of the garments. But the constant presence in the capital of people from the interior preserves some of the old picturesque aspect. The hamals, the famous porters of Constantinople, preserve their primitive dress, the chief feature in which is the brown,homespun, hooded jacket, embroidered in red and black, in designs which have been handed down from generation to generation.
The peasants from Roumelia generally wear brown homespun, some of them a sort of “jumper," with a huge square collar falling down the back—an exaggeration of the collar of our bluejackets. Those from Anatolia are usually in blue. Here is a description of a peasant's dress which may be termed nondescript. The fez crumpled up into an irregular pointed form; a white kerchief with scant silver embroidery wrapped round it; the many-pleated shalvar of brown homespun, secured by a leathern strap; a cotton shirt, blue, with a trefoil pattern of darker blue; green buttons; stockings, red and yellow on a white ground; canoe-shaped shoes of undressed hide secured by thongs of the same material wound round and round the ankles. The thongs may be string sometimes, and the leathern strap may be replaced by a red woollen waist-band.
There are certain distinctive marks. The Albanian wears on his sleeved vest two vertical rows of small brass buttons set in threes. The turbans among the old-fashioned and the provincial Turks are generally of the flowered muslin of Damascus, brown-gold on a white ground, and sometimes of the gaily striped fabrics from the same looms in which red and yellow are the dominant notes.
In winter the kaftans are fur-lined among the well-to-do and wadded with cotton amongst the poor. These wadded garments are distinctively Turkish and give the person the appearance of being enveloped in bed-quilts. It used to be a general custom, though it is now falling into desuetude, to dress the children of officers in a miniature replica of military or naval uniform. This is not only ludicrous but uncomfortable for the child. Little boys, however, go straight from infants' clothes into trousers, which together with the fez tends to give them the appearance of little old men.
The knickerbockers of the West, so much nearer their own original native dress, is unknown to the Turks, with the exception of a few families in the front rank of society. The middle-classes jealously hold to the pantalon for their youth, leaving the shalvar to the working folk.
The peasant costume most general in Asia Minor is a blue jacket, a red waist-shawl, brown shalvar, and white stockings—a pleasing and effective combination of colour. The blue is of a peculiar and very beautiful tint, and is relieved by delicate black embroidery.
Travellers on the Anatolian railway between the Bosphorus and Konia or Angora will see more of this costume than any other. But it is not universal. In the valley of the Meander and the adjacent region we meet with the zebek. His embroidered jacket is so short that it barely reaches his elbows. His white cotton shalvar, except for its redundance of width, might be a pair of bathing-drawers. His legs from the middle of the thigh to his socks are bare. His waist for the space of two feet is tightly swathed in a red bandage. This gives him the likeness of an insect.
The curtailed nature of his jacket and shalvar makes him look as though he had outgrown his clothes. But their scantiness is redeemed by his fez, which is at least eighteen inches high, and around it is wound a gaily coloured kerchief, fringed and tasselled. He would be grotesque were he not so wildly picturesque. Strapped in front of his waist-shawl is a capacious leather pocket containing his yataghan, pistols, and tobacco; slung at his back is his long gun.
It was the author's lot to make his acquaintance before he knew anything of other Turks, and after him the costume of the rest seemed tame. They have tried to take his dress away from him, as a means of making him lose his individuality, for, generally speaking, he is “agin the Government." But the effort has not been successful. It is to be feared he is given to brigandage, but, apart from his professional pursuits, he is an excellent fellow, and not the least happy days in the life of this writer have been passed with him amid scenes of elfin beauty on Messogis, or where Pactolus rushes down from Tmolus to Sardis and the plain.
Ferriman, Z. Duckett. Turkey and the Turks. James Pott & Co., 1911.
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