Hello from the rooftop of the world!
It has been eleven days for me in Bhutan, the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom sandwiched between India and China. The country is dedicated to national happiness and the Bhutanese proudly preserve their culture.
It is warm here during the day, though it can be windy and cool in the shade. At night, though, the temperature plummets and it is freezing outside. Layers are an absolute must!
Ever had to wear a school uniform? Bhutan has a dress code for all its citizens which is enforced by law. The Bhutanese people wear their traditional national dress for work, school, and public and religious matters. Bhutanese may wear Western-style clothing at home and in leisure but most people keep it traditional, especially in more rural areas. Tourists, foreign contract workers, and refugees are not expected to don the Bhutanese dress.
Women of Bhutan wear a piece called a kira. It is essentially three panels of weaving stitched together to make a large rectangle that is wrapped around the body. Wrap it up over your torso and secure with a brooch (traditional way) or wear the kira in half as a skirt, holding it together by a kera, a simple woven belt. A short, boxy jacket-wongu- is worn in accompaniment.
To dress up their outfits, women throw a highly decorative, ceremonial scarf called a rachu over their shoulders.
The kira has been worn by the Bhutanese since the end of the 18th century.
Bhutanese women are expert, practiced weavers who weave for themselves and their husbands. (Interestingly, as weaving is a woman's art, embroidery is considered part of the male domain.) Kiras are most popularly woven out of silk and cotton. The level of intricacy in these beautiful weavings is fascinating. These panels look as if they are embroidered but in fact the designs are meticulously hand woven in the weft of the loom. A typical kira takes about one year of work to complete.
Although Bhutan is a poor country, its people appreciate the value of its arts and crafts and do not sell themselves short, especially to tourists. These silk on silk kiras price around $1,000 to $3,000 dollars and their silk on cotton sisters sing to the tune of $300 to $700. Kiras are also made of plain cotton, linen, wool, and yak hair for more utilitarian purposes.
Here is a girl weaving at a textile house:
The kira is never cut to make tailored garments; it is wrapped only.
The handmade jewelry in Bhutan is gorgeous. The Bhutanese women have a penchant for bold, big necklaces made of amber, quartz, and amethyst as well as for silver jewelry with large pieces of turquoise and coral. Dyed and polished yak bone is also very popular.
Check out these totally hot belts, encrusted with semi-precious stones:
Bhutanese men wear a robe called a gho. It has sewn-on sleeves as well as a lining. The closure to the robe is found on the right hip, forming a very functional pouch pocket in the front. Bhutanese men keep everything in there: knives, cellphones, papers, perhaps a snack for later... Our guide even stored our extra camera lens in his gho pocket when going on mountain hikes!
The gho originates from the beginning of the 17th century. It was an adaptation of the robes from neighbor Tibet, with a short, roomy skirt perfect for warmer weather and mountain climbing. The men wear a shirt under their ghos, the super long sleeves of the shirt coming to fold over the outer sleeve of the gho.
They tie their robes with the same belt, kera, as the women do. The men usually wear knee-high socks for warmth but some may wear an additional layer of tights or rock it barelegged. Besides the traditional highly adorned boots of the Bhutanese, the men wear black Hush Puppy dress shoes with their national dress.
For special ceremonies, men drape their kabney over their shoulders.
Thinking back to the days of sneaking personal style past school uniform rules, I found it really interesting to see subtle Western adornment with the traditional dress. Women, in their ornate, traditional kiras and rachu, carry leather designer bags, imports from China and India, and wear short heeled sandals with slip-on leather straps.
Many men wear argyle knee-socks with their ghos.
More surprisingly, it seemed that many men enjoyed wearing those fuzzy and soft polyester/nylon scarves and gloves, glitter being a plus.
An average working Bhutanese man owns 3-5 ghos and 5-6 pieces of Western clothing. The average woman owns 10-12 kiras, a fact when told to me was accompanied by a husband's laughter. Seems like women every where love to have options!
The Bhutanese are deeply religious Buddhists and "do not kill any living things." They are not vegetarians, but they import all their meat from other countries to avoid slaughtering animals themselves. In the same way, the Bhutanese only produce raw, bura, silk. Raw silk uses the cocoons that have already been vacated by their moths. For cultivated silk, India and China are chief importers, as well as for synthetic yarns.
Every accomplished weaver can dye her own yarns using local natural resources. Indigo is used for blue, madder root for orange, walnut and tumeric for yellow, and an insect secretion called lac for red.
