Ottoman Costume thoughts

When I participated as a member of the Ottoman Empire group for the 2018 Florida Renaissance Festival, I wore different costumes every week based on stuff I already had in my closets. One of my favorites was the one at left, which was assembled from a bellydance cover-up from Bipin Jain, along with gold harem pants (not visible in the pic), and of course suitable jewelry and headpiece. There were 2 key things about the main piece, the cover-up, that made this a favorite:

Key things

• Nice breathable fabric... I think it's cotton. This is especially important for an outdoor event like Ren Fest, where temps often get close to 90 degrees F.
• Extra decorative design details to give it an "Ottoman" look. This included printed fabrics as well as trims. See pic at right.

I liked it so well for the purpose of Ren Fest that I would totally consider purchasing similar items for the same purpose, and I would assume there are other people with similar interests. I do think there are some improvements that could be made to make them more usable for Middle Eastern wear at Ren Faires. In particular, I've been thinking a lot about stylistic options that could help make them even more useful for Ottoman style, without losing their basic intended function of bellydance coverup or caftan. I just wanted to document those thoughts here.

Research - Basic Ottoman

It is, of course, relevant to understand what proper Ottoman style of the period (i.e. the Suleyman era, the early 1500s) was. I found this image online that shows what seems to show it well. It's a costume design by "jamberry song" for a Barbary Pirate/Corsair, which were, basically, privateers for the Ottomans. But the basic design is relevant for Ottomans in general. (Note: My research has generally been for female clothing, but males were fairly similar.)

So, the basic costume was pantaloons, with at least 2 top layers, that I will call an underdress and an overdress or coat. Those 2 layers could be various and different lengths, from floor to midi to knee to tunic to waist.

In my research, I also learned about a style of Turkish dress called bindalli. If you google it, you'll see a lot of really gorgeous outfits, similar to the one at left. My understanding is that it's not really accurate to the style that women wore in the 1500s, but it looks like it might be, i.e., it "reads" well. It seems to be the style used for many of the costume designs for the women in the TV show The Magnificent Century, which is about the Ottoman era of Suleyman.

So, the bindalli looks like a fancy "coat" over a nice underdress, which relates pretty well to the basic Ottoman attire of the proper period. I've seen some where the coat is worn over harem pants, but most of them show long skirts like the pic at left. (They might still have pants, but you wouldn't see them.) Also, they look really good, which is important, so I think the bindalli is useful as inspiration.

For the basic Ottoman outfit, the pants and underdress are simple and easy enough to obtain. It's the overdress/coat that's the hard part because that's where you want the fancy fabric and decorations. So my focus in this article is on the overdress/coat.

Possible Enhancements

I have 2 sets of potential enhancements that I think would help make a basic bellydance coverup like the one I wore into something that would make it even better to use as Ottoman wear as well. This first set is what I would consider higher-priority:

• Shorter Lengths: The overdress layer in the outfit I showed at the top of this page was full-length, but I was a bit bummed because you could hardly see the harem pants I was wearing underneath (needed the pants because there were big slits up the sides), and the pants looked REALLY good with it--the colors coordinated beautifully. I would have preferred it be midi or even knee-length, similar to the one in the bindalli pic I just showed. Real Ottoman coats could apparently come in any length, from floor thru knee up to short jacket.

  Midi length would still be totally usable for a bellydance cover-up or a short caftan. Shorter lengths would work as tunics, perhaps as part of a salwar-kameez set (which is cool because Ottomans need salwar too).

• Sleeve Variations for Underdress: In my outfit pictured at the beginning of this article, the coat part has long straight sleeves, which was fine. That allowed me to get away with not having an underdress, because nobody would've seen it anyway. But fancy drippy sleeves are so cool! Alas, fancy drippy sleeves on the coat would probably render it less useful for more mundane purposes. But I can think of a couple of possible solutions that wouldn't have this problem:
  • Short/half sleeves, which would allow fancy sleeves on the underdress to show through, similar to the bindalli pic at right. You could also do no sleeves, similar to the Barbary Pirate costume shown earlier, which would make the coat more like a vest.
  • Long sleeves that open. I don't mean that they flare out, but that they're similar to those in the first pic below (yes, it's ghawazee, not exactly period Ottoman, but the same style concept). To quote from Shushanna's Bellydance Costume Tutorials, "Many people [who look at this picture today] think that oddly placed rectangles of fabric were hung from one side of 3/4 length sleeves, when it is more likely that they had long, fitted sleeves that could be partially unfastened up to the elbow." The second pic below shows an ultra-fancy version of this: there's a slit on the outside of the sleeve with a tie at the end so you can close or open it.

     

    Another option that would seem easier to do, rather than cutting a special slit, would be to use the seam on the bottom of the sleeve for that purpose. Instead of stitching the seam together between the elbow and the wrist, just leave it open. Besides using a tie to close it, you could use a snap, or a hook and eye... or, if you really wanted to be "in period," a button. Or, don't put a closure, just let it hang... a purchaser could always add something to close it if needed, but I suspect many wouldn't use it.

    Some people might think that having the sleeve open on the bottom instead of the top would look weird, but I really don't think it would be an issue, mainly because a lot depends on arm positions and they vary so much. Also, it might actually be totally logical if your goal is to allow drippy sleeves on an underdress to hang out.

So, those were the major things I'd like to see. The second set of ideas, decscribed following, are things that would also be nice, but I see as less important:

• Shaping: The very classic, "in period" Ottoman shape was fitted to the waist, then flaring out, much like the bindalli photos I posted above. Many dance cover-ups enable this, to some extent, by having slits down the side seams, so if it's worn over a full skirt, it takes the shape. Which is OK, but as I understand it, slits like that are not "in period." So it would be cool to have some actual shaping, to give it a bit of an "A" line. Doesn't need to be a lot.
• Fancy front bottom: You may note in the bindalli pics shown above that the lower front edges were curved, which gives an interesting look, which would be interesting. I'm not sure if it's actually "in period" though. I've seen some old pics that seem to show something similar, but when you look closer, it looks like what the person in the pic has done is taken the lower front corners of the overdress and tucked them into their belt, as in the person at front left in the pic below (and the tiny person next to them, which I assume is supposed to be a child).

  

  So to enable the edges to be tucked in like that, you could do things like line the underside and give it a fancy shape, but I don't think that's necessary, or even very desirable. I think all that would be important would be to make sure the edges were finished so it looked nice on the underside.

So those are my ideas about some hopefully minor changes that might make bellydance cover-ups more appealing to Renaissance cosplayers.

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