The Day of traditional blouse

24 th of June is a special day for us, a day dedicated to our traditional outfit. This day is actualy the International day of traditional blouse, when women around the world proudly wear this special outfit. 2016 is the fourth year when we celebrate this special day.

The project of having an international day dedicated to this piece of folklore was initiated by the “La Blouse Roumaine” – Romanian community in January 2013 and it soon became an international event, celebrated on 5 continents, in over 50 countries.

In Romania, the traditional blouse is called “ie”, and it is a beautiful blouse with a special design. “Ie” is more than just a blouse, is a piece of art with a huge value. The embroidery work is done by hand and it takes more weeks to complete the work on the special design of the blouse. Usually this special element is done to decorate sleeves, chest and neck. Some of the blouses even have little beads or shiny elements, to make them more beautiful. The result is really impressive and it is a representative piece of Romanian folklore.

Since it is part of the traditional outfit, an “ie” can also provide important information: by looking on the colors of the embroidery and design we can tell from which region in Romanian does it comes from. Each region has specific elements, but all of them are really impressive. In fact it is quite hard to find two ie the same.

Little girls, grown women and even grandmas are thrilled to have a day for parade: they present the embroidery and tell the hidden story of the blouse. The design of the embroidery used to have special meanings, the most important ones being to protect the lady who was wearing it from spells, evil or bad powers. It is a common custom to inherit a traditional blouse, and so, many of them are even one hundred years old.

If you are travelling Romanian lands do look for our traditional blouse, since we are sure you will want one for yourself. Nothing compares to a comfy blouse, elegant, special and for sure unique.

photo credits:http://www.paginadeagricultura.ro/ia-romaneasca-mica-afacere-la-sate/
The second is from our Christmas feast, but a good way to see a lot of special models of  Romanian blouses 🙂