Trade exhibition of china head dolls in traditional costumes from Moravian Slovakia

Hand made by Anežka Dekanová. On display are total 18 forty centimetres tall china head dolls. All of them are dressed in hand sewn and hand embroidered folk costumes from various areas of the so called Moravian Slovakia, a region bordering the Slovak Republic. It takes Anežka Dekanová approximately 50 hours to make the costume including all accessories and folk boots called “čižmy”.

Moravian Slovakia is a large region covering a substantial part of South-Eastern Moravia. It is a unique region of the Czech Republic where the custom of wearing the traditional costume has been preserved up to the present day. It is still possible to see old women dressed in simplified costumes suitable for everyday use. The youth, on the other hand, wear the most elaborate and decorative forms of the traditional costume several times a year only, especially for the processions during the village festivals.

A wide silhouette and especially a voluminous skirt were typical for folk costumes in Bohemia and Moravia. It was possible to achieve this “hourglass” silhouette by wearing many underskirts which were, moreover, heavily starched. Traditional costumes in Moravian Slovakia showed obvious signs of eastern clothing. The most common material was woollen and cotton cloth. Instead of the upper skirt, women used to wear two aprons, “šorec” tied from the back to the front and “fěrtoch” worn over the front of the body which was usually exquisitely embroidered.

The exhibition is intended to show all those interested in folk art the national wealth and artistic heritage that we want to safeguard and hand down to our children and grandchildren.

Motto: “Not the artist for the folk but the folk for the artist. Country people are artists creating art that survives centuries.”