Pashmina shawl

Pashmina refers to a type of fine cashmere wool and the textiles made from it.The name comes from Pashmineh, made from Persian pashm (= "wool"). This wool comes from changthangi or pashmina goat, which is a special breed of goat indigenous to high altitudes of the Himalayas. The wool has been used for thousands of years to make high-quality shawls that also bear the same name.

Pashmina is an Urdu and Persian word which only became popular after the so-named shawls, woven in Kashmir, started being popular in the west. Pashmina shawls were originally shawls hand spun, woven and embroidered in Kashmir, and made from fine cashmere fiber.

Pashmina accessories are available in a range of sizes:

"scarf" (12" x 60")

"wrap" or "stole" (28" x 80")

full sized shawl (36" x 80")

Pure pashmina is a rather gauzy, open weave, as the fiber cannot tolerate high tension.

The most popular pashmina fabric is a 70% pashmina/30% silk blend, but 50/50 is also common. The 70/30 is tightly woven, has an elegant sheen and drapes nicely, but is still quite soft and light-weight.

A pashmina shawl can range in cost from as little as about $35US for a pure pashmina scarf or up to thousands of $US for a super high-quality pure pashmina shawl. They are known for their softness and warmth.

A craze for pashminas in the mid-1990s resulted in high demand for pashminas, so demand exceeded supply.

When pashmina shawls rose into fashion prominence during the mid-'90s, they were marketed dubiously. Cashmere used for pashmina shawls was claimed to be of a superior quality, which was really due to the enhanced sheen and softness that the fabric (cashmere blended with silk) had. In the consuming markets, pashmina shawls were redefined as a shawl/wrap with cashmere and silk, notwithstanding the actual meaning of pashmina. Some shawls marketed as pashmina shawls contain wool, while other unscrupulous companies marketed the man-made fabric viscose as "pashmina" with deceptive marketing statements as "authentic viscose pashmina".

African head tie

The head wrap or headgear plays an important part in Africa’s fashion styling, specifically in West Africa. There is a saying that "an attire is not complete until it is topped with a headgear".

by www.anyiams.com

There are different styles of head wrapping:

Poncho cape and cloak

Cashmere poncho

Wool poncho

Fashion poncho
Traditional poncho

Cape

Cloak without hood

Cloak with hood

These cloaks remind me of fairy tale of wizards and a pretty princess

They are Occupied much of winter collection by many fashion houses nowadays

Fashion Poncho may be made of satin or silk as an accessories and color-up item in fall

Fall and winter cape or cloak usually made of fur, leather, velvet to keep warm

Sarong by Malaysian and similar things

A sarong or sarung (pronounced [ˈsaɾoŋ] in Malay, and IPA: /səˈrɒŋ/ in English) is a large sheet of fabric, often wrapped around the waist and worn as a skirt by men and women throughout much of south Asia:

• Bangladesh
• British Indian Ocean Territory
• Bhutan
• India
• Maldives
• Nepal
• Pakistan
• Sri Lanka

southeast Asia

• Brunei
• Cambodia
• East Timor
• Indonesia
• Laos
• Malaysia
• Myanmar
• Philippines
• Singapore
• Thailand
• Vietnam

the Horn of Africa, and on many Pacific islands.

In Vietnam, it is not traditional costume. It is worn by Muslim, Hindi, some ethnic groups across VN.

Color and patterns
The fabric is often brightly coloured or printed with intricate patterns, often depicting animals or plants, checkered or geometric patterns, or resembling the results of tie dying.

Brightly coloured sarongs are used in Southeast Asian countries

Similar things

The basic garment known in English most often as a "sarong", sewn or unsewn, has analogs in many regions, where it shows variations in style and is known by different names.

In Africa:

• In Eastern Africa, it is called either a kanga (worn only by African women), or a kikoi (traditionally worn by African men). Kangas are brightly coloured lengths of cotton that incorporate elaborate and artistic designs and usually include the printing of a Swahili proverb along the hem. Kikois are also made from cotton, but the fabric is heavier than that of the kanga and their designs are much simpler, usually consisting of a single colour with striped borders along the edges.
• In Madagascar it is called a lamba.
• In Malawi it is called a chitenje.
• In Mauritius they are called pareos.
• In Mozambique it is called a capulana.
• In South Africa it is called a kikoi and commonly used as a furniture throw or for going to the beach.
• In Zimbabwe they are known as Zambias.

On the Indian subcontinent:

• In South Asia it is called a lungi. It is most often sewn into a large cylindrical shape, so there is no slit when the lungi is tied.
• In India similar articles of clothing are the dhoti (or dhuti in West Bengali, veshti in Tamil, pancha in Telugu,panche in Kannada and Mundu in Malayalam).
• In the Maldives, and Indian state of Kerala, it is known as a mundu or neriyathu.
• In Punjab it is a called maylee when worn by a man, and a gamcha when worn by a woman.
• In Sinhalese, it is known as the Sarama

In Southeast Asia:

• In Cambodia it is known as sampot suhrong, or simply suhrong.
• In Indonesia it is known as a kain sarung ('sarong cloth').
• In Malaysia it is known as a kain, kain pelikat, kain sarung, or kain sampin (specialised sarong worn by men with Baju Melayu).
• In Myanmar, it is known as a longyi.
• In the Philippines it is also known as a malong.

In the Pacific Islands:

• In Fiji it is known as a sulu.
• In Hawaii it is referred to by the Anglicized Tahitian name, pareo.
• In Papua New Guinea the Tok-Pisin term is lap-lap. Worn by men and women.
• In Rotuma, it is known as a "hạ' fạli"
• In Samoa it is known as a lavalava (also lava-lava).
• In Tahiti it is known as a pāreu.
• In Tonga it is known as tupenu.

Western World

In North America and Europe, the fabric of the sarong is generally quite light, often rayon, and may feature decorative fringing on two sides. They may also have ties, which are long thin strips of fabric used to assist the wearer in holding the sarong to his body so it does not fall off while moving around.

In North America and Europe, sarongs are often used by women as a cover-up over swimwear.

Sri lanka women wearing sarong

Pareo

The pāreu or pareo (see below) is the Tahitian word for wraparound skirt. Originally it was used only to refer to women's skirts, as men wore a loincloth, called a maro. Nowadays the term is applied to any piece of cloth worn wrapped around the body, worn by males or females. It is related to the Malay sarong, Sāmoan lavalava, Tongan tupenu and other such garments.

The Tahitian pāreu are among the most colourful and bright ones of the Pacific. Originally flower patterns, the hibiscus flowers in particular, or traditional tapa patterns, were printed in bright colours on a cotton sheet of about 90 or 120 cm wide and 180 cm long, made in China. Nowadays they are also made in Tahiti itself and dye painting with varying colours is popular as well.

Hiva Oa dancers dressed in pāreu around 1909






At the beach....

Sash

A sash (Arabic: شاش‎, shash^[1]) is a cloth belt used to hold a robe together, and is usually tied about the waist.




The Japanese equivalent of a sash, obi, serves to hold a kimono or yukata together.







Decorative sashes may pass from the shoulder to the hip rather than around the waist.

Sash worn by Jack Sparrow in The Pirate Caribbean Movie
Inspired from Jack Sparrow costume, there are thousands of shops selling sashes like him.










Pirate style






Sashes traditionally form part of formal military attire (compare the sword-belt known as a baldric, and the cummerbund). Most of the European Royal families wear sashes as a part of their royal (and/or military) regalia. Some Order (decoration)s such as the Légion d'honneur include sashes as part of the seniormost grades' insignia.

In Latin America and some countries of Africa, a special presidential sash indicates a president's authority.

Vicente Fox, President of Mexico 2000-2006

In France and Italy, sashes, featuring the national flag tricolours and worn on the right shoulder, are used by public authorities and local officials; likewise Italian military officers wear plain blue sashes on the right shoulder during ceremonial occasions.

At the time of the American Civil War (1861-65) red sashes were authorised for officers and sergeants of the regular US Army (Army Regulations of 1861). U.S. Generals continued to wear buff silk sashes in full dress until 1917.

In the Confederate Army of the Civil War period sash colour indicated the corps or status of the wearer.

For example:

gold for cavalry

burgundy for infantry

black for chaplains

red for sergeants

green or blue for medics

grey or cream for general officers.

The modern British Army retains a scarlet sash for wear by sergeants in certain orders of dress, over the right shoulder to the hip. A similar burgundy sash is worn around the waist by officers of the Foot Guards in scarlet full dress and officers of line infantry in dark blue "Number 1" dress. The same practice is followed in some Commonwealth armies.

The present day armies of India and Pakistan both make extensive use of waist sashes for ceremonial wear. The colours vary widely according to regiment or branch and match those of the turbans where worn. Typically two or more colours are incorporated in the sash, in vertical stripes. One end hangs loose at the side and may have an ornamental fringe. The practice of wearing distinctive regimental sashes goes back to at least the nineteenth century.

In the United States, the sash has picked up a more ceremonial and less practical purpose. Sashes are used at higher education commencement ceremonies, by high school homecoming parade nominees

in beauty pageants

Mrs. Texas crowned in beauty contest (2001)

....as well as by corporations to acknowledge high achievement.

In Canada, hand woven sashes (called ceintures fléchées and sometimes "L'Assumption sash" after a town in which they were mass produced) were derived from Iroquoiuan carrying belts sometime in the 18th century. As a powerful multi-use tool this sash found use in the fur trade which brought it into the North West. In this period the weave got tighter and size expanded, with some examples more than four metres in length. Coloured thread was widely used. Today it is considered to be primarily a symbol of the 1837 Lower Canada Rebellion Patriotes and the Métis peoples.

In Ireland, especially Northern Ireland, the sash is a symbol of the Orange Order. Orange Order sashes were originally of the ceremonial shoulder-to-hip variety as worn by the British military. Over the 20th century the sash has been mostly replaced by V-shaped collarettes, which are still generally referred to as sashes.

The item is celebrated in the song 'The Sash my Father Wore'.

Nowadays use

Another use

More on Japanese Obi..