Decoration of clothes and accessories with pearls

Elegant and ceremonial clothes in Russia have always been widespread, fabrics were decorated with various patterns that were woven together with the fabric, but there were embroidered patterns (gold, silver, silks) and lowered (pearls).

Pearls were also called pearls in Russia. The word "pearl" passed into Russian from Old French, where it came from Latin - "perna" - that was the name of one of the large shells. In general, the word "pearl" is of Chinese-Mongolian origin (the Chinese word "hound" was transformed into Mongolian - "zhenzhu", and then into Russian - "pearl").

Nizanny - from the word "lower", that is, to collect several pearls or beads on a wire or thread and create patterns on the fabric. Sewing with pearls, also called "sazhenie", was performed in different ways: straight or obliquely knitting, in three strands, in the form of a net, lattice, cells or chess, in one or more threads.

Large pearls were considered grains, and small pearls were considered weight. The main sequence of knitting was as follows: first, the contours of the pattern were applied to the fabric, then the flooring was made according to the pattern with linen or paper threads.

The pearls were preliminarily disassembled in size and selected the necessary sizes according to the patterns, then holes were drilled and strung on a thread or a thin wire, so a pearl thread was obtained. It was laid on the flooring and fastened with stitches after each pearl. Thus, the strength of the embroidered pattern was achieved.

Pearl used not only at the royal, boyar or merchant court, but also in the peasant. He adorned the queen, the merchant's wife, and the peasant woman. In museums, dresses of various classes that have survived and have come down to our time are kept, and among them you can see many peasant dresses decorated with pearls.

It is not necessary to talk about how the peasants lived - rich or poor just because the clothes are decorated with pearls. The fact is that collecting a pearl necklace before the 18th century did not even cost a peasant a lot of money, all he had to do was work hard, that is, get the pearls from the bottom of the river. It is not for nothing that foreigners called river pearls a Russian stone. There were plenty of rivers in the Russian North - both large and small, and clean.

Before going to catch shells, we washed in the bath so that the person himself was clean both in soul and body. It was believed that only a good fellow, pure and noble, could get pearls, but it was not given to evil and greedy ones. Pearl itself is pure and light, and therefore cannot stand evil deeds.

If there were so many pearl jewelry, then it remains only to say - how many noble guys there were in Russia, because on the kokoshnik and in the necklace one could count more than one hundred pearls.

Pearl lowering adorned not only the clothes of kings, boyars and peasants, but also icons in churches and the vestments of priests. On one of the sakkos (bishop's liturgical vestments) of Patriarch Nikon there was about a pile of pearls, and together with other stones the sakkos weighed 24 kg.

At the beginning of the 17th century, there were seven royal crowns in the Kremlin, in which, among other precious stones, there were pearls. After the Poles in the Time of Troubles, there were only two - Monomakh hat and the Kazan cap of Ivan the Terrible. The Poles took it into their head to shoot the Kremlin pearls from guns - "had fun."

But back to today. If you want to have a Russian-style outfit in your wardrobe, remember about embroidery with pearl threads. However, this does not mean that you have to buy a lot of river pearl necklaces, although this is possible for some. You can buy mother of pearl beads in different sizes and use the same method described above to create your own unique outfit.