Turkish Cypriot dress The period of Ottoman Rule (1571-1878) The period of British Rule (1878-1960)
Written Sources | Visual representations | Preserved items
The arrival of the British in Cyprus opened the way to more travellers, especially from Britain. As a result, the dress of local people is documented with more descriptions and even more visual evidence.
In his book British Cyprus, published in London in 1879, W. Hepworth Dixon occasionally records his glimpses – like camera snapshots – of the appearance of the natives. In the chapter titled ‘Nicosians’, Dixon offers the most flattering description of Muslim women’s appearance: ‘Men and women in Nicosia proclaim their nationality in their dress; men by means of turban and fez; women by means of yashmak and shawl. The female dress is apt to strike you first; all Moslem women being robed from head to foot in white with nothing but their eyes exposed; while the Orthodox women are clothed in gaudy colours – sea-green, orange, red and striped – with all their charms obtruded on the public sight…’ (Dixon 1879, 52-53,155).
Foreigners who came to study the island and its people, spontaneously juxtaposed Greeks and Turks. British ladies recorded traditional costumes in detail. Esmé Scott-Stevenson described and compared the clothing of Muslim and Greek women in Nicosia: ‘Over the Turkish women I marveled greatly, in their absurd French boots and long white sheet, which, shrouding them from head to foot, left visible only the single eye that peered so curiously at me as I passed. They looked like great white bundles, though hardly more ungraceful than the Greek women. The latter dress in European skirts of the fashion of twenty years ago, with much fullness round already abundant hips…. Altogether, the nationalities and costumes in Nicosia are quite as varied as in Alexandria’ (Scott-Stevenson 1880, 20-21).
Emile Deschamps was the first French traveller who visited Cyprus after the arrival of the British. In his book Au pays d’Aphrodite, Chypre. Carnet d’un voyageur, which was published in Paris in 1898, Deschamps described his stay in the island from November 1892 to March 1894. His comments on the attire of local people are scattered through the chapters of his book. Regarding the appearance of the male natives, Greeks and Turks, Deschamps remarked that they were similarly dressed, the Turks being tidier and more comfortable. He remarked the local dandies in their fezzes and baggy trousers, tied at the calves with garters. The fez was often very tall, worn slightly askew, wound with a white scarf decorated with golden fringes, and with its end falling on the face. He commented that this headgear was the most ungraceful part of their attire. For decoration they often put a flower over the ear or a small bunch of flowers which was held tight under the fez. Over the broad-sleeved shirt they wore a waistcoat, often with different colours on the front and back, such as bright red on the chest and apple-green with flower patterns on the back. The waist was surrounded with a wide colourful cummerbund with gaudy vegetal designs, falling to the middle of the calves. The attire was completed with pink, blue or yellow stockings, tightly held by red garters, and open shoes; such shoes were worn by the townsmen, while peasants wore heavy top boots. This attire was a typical traditional male costume of the Turks of Cyprus.
Finally, Deschamps devoted to the Turkish ladies a rather impressionistic imaginative description: he noticed a swarm of them in front of the walls of Larnaca castle; seen from a distance, with their colourful umbrellas contrasting their white garments, they looked like a beautiful flower-bed in a field covered with snow.
Late 19th century family photographs document that the red fez in combination with European clothes was a feature shared by both eminent Turks and upper-class Greeks in the urban centres of Cyprus. In such photographs young members of the family appear in ‘Frankish’ costumes, but the older ones still wear the fez. Ladies pose in long, high-necked dresses decorated with pleats, lace and frills. They were made of Cypriot silk and lace, or imported fabrics, mainly of British manufacture. Upper-class women were the first to adopt European dress styles, and they set the example for the wider population.
Apart from the general modernization of Cyprus under British rule, the westernization of dress as part of the radical reforms in Turkey imposed by Kemal Atatürk, was yet another major factor that affected the dress of the Turks of Cyprus after the first decades of the 20th century. Harry Luke commented: ‘The ‘Hat Law’ of the Ankara Republic and consequential westernization of Turkish dress have not been without their influence on Cyprus. Now that Cypriote Turks have given up not only the countryman’s baggy breeches but the townsman’s fez, and the Greek villager’s distinctive dress is seen but rarely, it is often difficult to tell the races apart. Formerly identification was automatic, and on the great Moslem holidays the atmosphere of Nicosia within the walls could be very Turkish’ ( Luke, 1935, 112).
Preserved garments are the material evidence par excellence for studying the traditional Turkish Cypriot costumes. The traditional garments became old-fashioned in the course of the 20th century and were slowly abandoned. Although they were still used in villages until recent times, it seems that only a restricted number of old traditional Turkish Cypriot costumes have been preserved as family heirlooms or as museum pieces.