In today’s post, I’m going to talk about a chapter in fashion history very close to my heart- the Bulgarian traditional folk costume. The costume in my tutorial, also called nosiya, is a young bride’s winter costume from the second half of the 19^th century, from Southeastern Thrace.

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The dress is a tunic or soukman as we call it in Bulgarian. It was the most widely spread female costume and consisted of a chemise on top of which was worn the tunic made of home-spun frieze, closed in the front.

The soukman dress was worn with an apron fastened in the front with a belt with large belt buckles. It’s in two colors- bright red and orange- red with greenish- white embroidery at the neckline and the foot of the skirt. The tunic is made of wool, the shadows are large and fewer because of the thickness of the fabric. It appears and creases almost like suede leather. 

As it’s a winter costume she wears a scarf and a coat over the dress. I decided to make two drawings just to show you how the actual garment looked like without being covered by additional clothing pieces. For the scarf I use a fairly diluted burnt sienna  to achieve the beige tone of the fabric and brown for the shadows. As I apply the shadows I use a second wet clean brush to soften and blend the brown color into the beige. For all embroidery on the garment I use fine liners and Promarkers because they are very precise when you render fine details.

Repeat the same technique shown before to render the chemise. As the chemise is made of a thick fabric, it creases in large and clean shapes but the shadows are still soft because it’s probably cotton. The decorations at the chemise’s sleeves repeat on the very bottom of it in the same red-black colour scheme.

It’s the costume’s ornaments that make it so beautiful and unique. The ornamentation is concentrated on the foot of the skirt, along the neckline and the sleeves’ borders. The coat is very simple.

Fill it in with black paint by leaving out the orange stripes and the seams. I didn’t spend much time on rendering the leather shoes and the socks but in the finished result you can see the costume with and without the head covering and the coat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-vM2z6P8K4

Thank you so much for reading, watching and sharing so generously.

TOOLS & MATERIALS:

•  Faber Castell Polychromos : (Amazon)
• Winsor & Newton Water colours: (Amazon)
• Winsor & Newton brushes: (Amazon)
• Winsor & Newton drawing Inks: (Amazon)