Vyshyvanka Day, 19 May 2016

A good Vyshyvanka Day to everyone wearing one today.

The thing I did not understand for my first several years here is that the pattern is information. It is not decoration chosen for looks. A specialist can look at a shirt and say which region it comes from, roughly when, sometimes which village, and often whether it was made for a young unmarried woman or for a married one.

Colour carries meaning, the stitch type carries meaning, and the placement carries meaning — the collar, the shoulders and the cuffs are treated differently because of what they were once believed to protect.

All of that is being worn on the metro this morning by people who mostly could not explain it and do not need to. The information survives in the object whether or not the wearer can read it.

A good day to you.