Male

Young boys in suits consisting of white shirts closed with ties, black trousers, waistcoats, and jackets. They are students of the Pancyprian Lyceum Larnaca (1907). The boy on the left is Pavlos Valtasidis.

Π.Β.Κ5.34

A little boy wearing a sailor suit (early 20th century). His cap is placed on a chair, next to him. Small boys, after the infant age, during which gender is difficult to distinguish in photographs, often appear dressed in navy-style clothing, consisting of knee-length trousers and a blouse with the characteristic wide collar.

Π.Β.Κ7.35

Carter with a camel in Larnaca (20th century). The man is wearing traditional attire comprising a shirt, a black pleated vraka (breeches), and "tsangaropodines" (hob-nailed peasants’ leather boots without distinction of left and right foot), and a white headscarf.

Φ.Σ.Φ1.Φ11

Judicial and legal body of Larnaca, 1911. Seated, from left to right: Hilmi Effendi (wearing a fez), Hagcrat, and Christopoulos. Standing in the front row are D. Dimitriou (fourth from the left), N. Georgiadis (behind Christopoulos) and Diof. Dimitriou (on the far right, wearing glasses). In the top row, from left to right, second is Carletti, fourth is G. Nicolaides, and fifth is Evangelos Hatziiōannou.

Of interest is the Turkish Cypriot attire: It consists of a fez, a patterned shirt under a double-breasted vest, breeches and a wide waist sash, as well as tall "frangopodines", European style boots.

Φ.Σ.Φ1.Φ9

A group of men on a hunting expedition (early 20th century). The photograph depicts, among others: Neoklis Kyriazis, Gionis and Antonis Tsepis, Pavlos Vontitsianos (Vondiziano), Nikolaos Themistocleous (Mayor of Larnaca), Z. Pierides, and M.A. Page. Suits are worn even during outdoor excursions. An assistant (mistarkos) is visible in the far right of the photograph, dressed in humble traditional attire (shirt, breeches/vraka, waistcoat). In his hand, he holds the European hat of his employer.

Archive of Marios Kyriazis

Photograph at the Ammochostos harbor with the harbor personnel.

Photograph at the Ammochostos harbor with harbor personnel (early 20th century). Giuseppe Pascotini the younger is seated in the front row, second from the left. Notable in the photograph are the everyday suits, straw hats and the tall gaiters of the seated men.

Π.Β.Κ7.06

Members of the Larnaca Club, 1891.

From top to bottom, and left to right: Standing, top row: G.P. Hunter, G. Mavroidis, F. Feneck, T. Slungers.

Standing, bottom row: N. Cababe, Krajowsky, G. Pierides, M.A. Page, J.A. Mackey, F.M. Montague, Rev. E.A. Gillett, G. Wilson.

Sitting, top row: A. Morton, W.H. Turner, T.H. Brayshaw, K. Krambis, A.G. Lanelles, H. Hilmi, Dr. Young, G. Fontana.

Sitting, bottom row: R. deM. Colgrave, W. Ansell, E.H. Hare, L.Z. Pierides.

The depicted men are wearing everyday suits with various types of head coverings, such as fezzes and hats of the "pompe" type. The hat known as the "pompe" is related to the British bowler hat, a hard, dome-shaped hat made of felt with a turned-up brim.

Φ.Σ.Φ1.Φ3

Members of the Larnaca Club, 1891.

From top to bottom, and left to right: Standing, top row: G.P. Hunter, G. Mavroidis, F. Feneck, T. Slungers.

Standing, bottom row: N. Cababe, Krajowsky, G. Pierides, M.A. Page, J.A. Mackey, F.M. Montague, Rev. E.A. Gillett, G. Wilson.

Sitting, top row: A. Morton, W.H. Turner, T.H. Brayshaw, K. Krambis, A.G. Lanelles, H. Hilmi, Dr. Young, G. Fontana.

Sitting, bottom row: R. deM. Colgrave, W. Ansell, E.H. Hare, L.Z. Pierides.

The depicted men are wearing everyday suits with various types of head coverings, such as fezzes and hats of the "pompe" type. The hat known as the "pompe" is related to the British bowler hat, a hard, dome-shaped hat made of felt with a turned-up brim.

Φ.Σ.Φ1.Φ3

The seated man is wearing heavily pleated black breeches (vraka) that reach the ankle, revealing leather boots. He also wears a shirt and a double-breasted waistcoat underneath a short black jacket with long sleeves that widen at the ends. The attire is complemented with a fez. Interestingly, this traditional attire is also paired with a necktie, a European element.

Ν.Γ.Κ.Κ8.115

Costume of an older man (dress Inv. No. 247), comprising a vraka (Inv. No. EE 3835), a chemise (Inv. No. EE 3836), a zostra (Inv. No. EE 3837), a straw hat (Inv. No. EE 3838) and po(d)ines (Inv. No. EE 3839). The costume was donated to the Benaki Museum by “Demetra”, the Rural Local Union of Lysi, Cyprus, in 1973.

Inv. No. EE 3835: Black vraka of loom-woven cotton fabric, with a cut similar to that of the young man’s breeches. Each leg of the vraka consists of a fabric panel folded and joined along the inner side to the central piece, the vakla (sella). At the lower end the leg openings, 15 cm. wide, have three rows of plain stitches along their edges. At the outer part of the side pieces, two rows of stitches form a decorative band from top to bottom that gives the impression of a seam. The sella is made of two fabric panels with a vertical joint at the centre, reaching from the front to the waist at the back, where there is a slit 15 cm. long. At the waist the fabric is folded to form a hem, through which passes the vrakozonin, a white cotton lace, 1 cm. wide, braided in a fishbone pattern. The vrakozonin was used for tying the vraka at the waist; it was passed through the hem with the help of a wooden accessory, the vrakorechtis. The vraka is prosiasti (pleated), yet its pleats are not as dense as those of the young man’s breeches. Dimensions: Length of vraka: 73 cm. maximum width: 143 cm.

Inv. No. EE 3836: Grey shirt made of alatzia, with a low upright collar and long sleeves with cuffs that close with a white button. The single-piece back is joined at the sides to the two front pieces. A slit opening, 11 cm. long, is formed at the bottom of these side seams. The nomitis below the collar is made of a separate piece. A vertical opening along the chest closes with six white buttons up to the base of the neck. The sleeves are formed of a single piece with a seam at the inner side of the arm. All seams are made of black thread stitches. Dimensions: Length: 75 cm. Width: 57 cm. Length of sleeves: 57,5 cm. Width of collar: 3 cm.

Inv. No. EE 3837: Zostra (waist sash) made of black woollen dimity. The only decorative element is a red line at the narrow sides, near the edges. Warp threads extend into simple fringes. Across one of the long sides the sash ends simply at the selvage, while on the opposite side the fabric folds into a narrow hem sewn with black thread in a fly stitch. Length: 232 cm. Width: 46 cm.

Inv. No. EE 3838: Wide-brimmed straw hat. A thin band of black fabric, 3 cm. wide, encircles the brim and the base of the projecting crown, which covers the head. Height: 9 cm. Diameter: 37 cm.

The straw hat made its appearance in Cyprus at the beginning of the British period; yet, as it accompanied European-style dress, it was more common in urban centres than in the countryside, where the prevailing types of headcover were the fez with a headscarf or the headscarf alone. The hat became rather popular during the 20th century.

Straw hats and European costumes are depicted in a photo by J.P. Foscolo, portraying the staff of the Ottoman Bank in Larnaca in 1895 (Foscolo 1992). Straw hats worn in combination with breeches are shown in photos dated to the last decade of the 19th century (Ohnefalsch-Richter 1994, tables 31: 1, 33: 1). The combination with breeches and boots is also met in a 1920 photograph, taken in Mesaoria (Michalopoulou-Charalambous 1993, 207).

Inv. No. EE 3839: Black podines (boots) of tanned he-goat skin, with a lining of yellowish sheepskin. At the upper end the leather folds outwards, forming a wide light-coloured band with a narrow hem of black leather, sewn with a zigzag stitch.

At the front end the toe box of the podina is slightly raised. Each boot consists of the following pieces: the front (the promouttin), sewn at the sides to the separate piece of the heel counter, a single piece that covers the calf, with a vertical seam along the outer side, and an additional triangular piece at the bottom of the calf and over the ankle, again at the outer side. All around the heel counter, a seam of stitches develops parallel to the joint. Overlaid pieces of sole leather form a thick sole without a heel. 14 iron flathead nails (rizes) made by a blacksmith are inserted at the tread. Their bent ends are seen all around the top of the sole. At the front of the sole there are three button-shaped nails with thin incisions on their round heads. A light-coloured seam extends at the joint of the sole to the boot leather above.

Instead of leather straps, the podines have a brown wool-knitted lace with a loop at one end, through which the other end passes. The lace is tightened by pulling. At the front part of the boots, down at the foot, decorative imprinted circles with a mesh design are arranged in three rows of five, six (at the centre) and five circles respectively.

The podines of the costume are entirely unworn. In Lysi, as in almost all the villages of Cyprus, there were skarpari(d)es, who made shoes, and tsagkari(d)es, who made podines (mentioned by name from 1885 to 1953 in: Xystouris 1980, 121). Height: 45 cm. Length of foot: 28,5 cm.