Description

This southwest Persian Bakhtiari men’s coat is made in two rectangular pieces of hand woven wool, one for the top and one for the bottom half. The pieces of sturdy cloth are sewn together on the shoulder and around the middle and are open at the front. It dates to the second half of the 20th century.

The coat has a very distinctive “keyboard” design in dark blue derived from indigo and undyed white. It is part of traditional Bakhtiari men’s dress and has not changed over more than a hundred years, possibly dating back even earlier. The coat would have been worn (and still is) over very baggy black trousers and a shirt, often dark, plus a round black felt hat to sit on the top of the head. This outfit is not worn all the time, but you still see men in the streets of Shahr-e Kord wearing the coat. Jean-Pierre Digard suggests it was and still is the dress code reserved for special occasions (see Tapper, Richard and Jon Thompson, editors, The Nomadic Peoples of Iran. London, Azimuth Editions, 2002, page 52, where he talks about a “group of men wearing their best clothes […] for an audience with a chief” in a caption to a photo taken in 1987).

It is in excellent, wearable condition.

SOLD