In Ukraine, we are very proud of our cultural heritage, especially our traditional clothes and embroidered shirts, which have become a true art of their own.

Handmade embroidery was practiced in Ukraine for centuries. For a long time only wealthy enough could afford embroidered clothes. That was approximately in the XVIII century, when the day-to-day work for survival purposes of the majority of Ukrainians started to require less time. That enabled Ukrainians to devote more time to their well being, and particularly — their clothes. As a result, by the end of the XIX century, local peasant and Cossack nobility populations in each region and each area of Ukraine developed local styles of clothes (and house-ware) distinguished by unique ornaments.

The oldest ornaments were composed using only one color — that was a color of not dyed thread, usually light gray — almost white. Later, people started using naturally dyed threads, but their colors remained pale shades. Invention and mass production after the 1850-ties of aniline dyes and availability of imported from Western Europe manufactured colored cotton threads resulted in multicolour ornaments all over Ukraine. Usually only from one to three colors were used in one ornament, though there could be up to 15 colors and shades. The most popular throughout most of the regions were: white, red, and black.

The composition of each ornament was not constant. Once created by the original author, or copied from a side sample (which could be the case, given that Ukraine was at the intersection of the trade routes), each ornament was creatively appropriated and spread with light modifications by the local community. Unpopular ornaments were less likely to be copied. The popular ones were copied but modified — as no Ukrainian girl or woman wanted to look like a rival or a neighbor. Such variability while following the original sample resulted eventually in the formation of what we call local styles.

This principle of “variability while belonging to one style” is not a Ukrainian invention — people need both: a sense of community and self-expression!

At the time they were created some ornaments could have particular names and some people claim that ornaments could also have some symbolic meanings. However, since these were not captured in time, nowadays we can only guess what they mean, though that does not diminish the attractiveness of these ornaments.

Unlike the rest of the clothes, which could have been bought or ordered from the local tailors, shirts were usually made by every girl or woman — that is one of the major causes of shirts’ variability. Shirts were sewn up from rectangular pieces of cloth with literally zero waste. In areas close to cities shirts were made of mass-produced cotton cloth, while in rural areas handmade linen or hemp cloths were used.

At the turn of the XIX and XX centuries, the majority of Ukrainians still were peasants, who had to make their clothes themselves. It is true that the primary function of these clothes was to clothe the body, but also these clothes played the role of a local identifier — distinguishing the local identity of each person.

As Ukraine developed and many great people left villages for plants and factories, traditional clothes were eventually replaced by manufactured ones, this happened by 1940-ies. However, because of such a large proportion of peasants in the early XX century — we inherited a relatively high amount of marvelous samples of clothing and house-ware from the early XX (and even late XIX century). This is why we, in the XXI century, have so many samples.

Generations of Ukrainians had been creating what they believed was beautiful, so altogether these masterpieces of traditional art in some way outline what the Ukrainian sense of beauty is. The diversity and beauty of our national heritage is truly breathtaking! No surprise that we could not resist acquiring our own collection of embroidered shirts, which at the moment exceeds 1300 items. While the creation of our online museum is in process, you can view some samples here.

Having studied our own collection and hundreds of samples from other collections and museums, we have never come across two identical embroidered shirts – they are all unique! This is natural, as no one wanted to look like a neighbor. Ukrainians cherished their look and valued their uniqueness. We also found that there are many shirts that look like “sisters” - they are alike, but not identical. “Sisters” who belong to one “family” form a particular local style. Having grouped all shirts from our collection into “families” - we derived over 100 distinguished local styles. As we hope we would digitize other collections the number of local styles is likely to grow. Finally, we identified that in a particular village or area, several “families” or local styles could coexist.

In Ukrainian, the verb “витвори” [vytvory] is a call for action to create something, or do something in a creative way — and this is what we encourage you to do!

Our online customizer VYTVORY.UA so far offers 886 unique ornaments which represent 20 local styles from 8 regions of Ukraine and we constantly add more. However, we do not just offer a huge choice - when designing our online customizer we followed the principle of “variability while belonging to one style”. So once you select an ornament for the top of the shoulder from one particular local style, then for the bottom of the shoulder and for a sleeve you will be offered ornaments only from that local style. In such a way, a shirt you create in a customizer will be 100% authentic – i.e. it will belong to one particular local style. At the same time, it will be 100% unique, as it’s you who compose where to place which ornament.

When we, Ukrainians, wear embroidered shirts – we testify with our shirts that we come from Ukraine. But in fact, we show much more: we show which part of Ukraine we come from and we show our personal taste, our choice we dare to make - our unity and diversity!

You don’t have to be Ukrainian and you don’t have to study traditional art to create authentic Ukrainian shirts — all you have to do is apply your taste in online customizer VYTVORY.UA

Create it your way!

And stay with Ukraine!

‍