Konavle Traditional Costumes

The identity of the man and the region has been expressed by the national costumes throughout history. The Konavle traditional costumes, especially the women's costumes, in a special way embody the centuries-old culture of living of the local population because of its beauty, elegance and aesthetics, and down to the present day it is perhaps the most beautiful representative of the Croatian folklore treasure.

Due to the harmony of the natural materials, out of which it is made, the ornaments of the Konavle embroidery, the jewels and the single pieces of clothing the Konavle women's costumes confer to the women of Konavle, who are beauties anyway, in a unique way a very particular elegance throughout her entire life, from the girl's age to the ripe old age.

Although equal in the basic elements (breast and sleeve ornament, an accentuated waist, the ankle-deep length, the headdress), with its details the Konavle costumes also showed the wealth and especially the social status of the woman (girl, wife, widow and similar).

Konavle Embroidery

The Konavle embroidery is the decorative basic element of the women's costumes, which was embroidered onto breast and sleeves. Originally, it was stitched with silk, won from the cocoons of the silk moth, carefully and attentively grown in each Konavle house and dyed with natural colours. The strictly symmetrical and geometrical motives in countless forms were mostly worked out in red, black, and dark-green colour with a golden-yellow border.

Because of its beauty and the extreme adaptability, the Konavle embroidery is applied to many of today's objects of utility (table-cloths, purses, decorative elements for evening gowns, table mats, pillowslips, spectacle cases, framed pictures of the Konavle embroidery and other). This way, the tradition of the handcraft is kept up, and thus Konavle is world-wide promoted in the best way.