Filigree Embroidery on Cloth

Zubun, a type of long vest, is one of the most beautiful and most meticulously decorated garments of Serbian national dress. It was widely in use by nearly all the South Slav peoples in the Balkan Peninsula in the 19^th and in the first half of the 20^th centuries.

By Ivana Kladarin Panic
Photo by Courtesy of Etnographic Museum in Belgrade

Visitors were in a position to enjoy the impressive exhibition depicting various types of zubun from September of last year to March this year at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. The exhibition was an effort to point out the dynamic connection between the past and present and to offer a new insight into this recognisable piece of Serbian cultural identity as well as to expand perception in terms of the ethno-history of the Serbian people and sartorial culture in a broader, Balkan context.

Zubun was widespread throughout the South Slav lands during the 19^th and first half of the 20^th centuries and was required as part of national dress. It was made of wool, and was a predominantly white cloth. Although also part of men’s attire, zubun is primarily a garment worn by women. In terms of the way it was made, it is defined as women’s homemade clothing. Nevertheless, it was also manufactured by rural as well as urban master artisans. It was worn either with a shirt or combined with upper-body short or long garments (long shirt, bodice, doublet).

The oldest recorded mention of zubun in the Balkans dates back to the dowry list of Bosnian Princess Marija Kotromanic in 1352. In addition to other articles of her trousseau, two pieces of zubun were also mentioned. In the 18^th century, an Italian abbot on his journey through Dalmatia wrote that Mavrovlachi women in Bukovica and Vrlika wear a sleeveless outer garment made of wool that falls all the way to their knees, and is hemmed with vermilion and called sadak – zubun. Zubun has thus survived from the dowry of the Bosnian princess to the record made in Dalmatia in 1774, a period of slightly over four centuries.

Apart from being one of the oldest garments characteristic for vestments worn by South Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula, this long vest also represents one of the major pieces of clothing of Serbian national dress. It was worn in both summer and winter and, in addition to being practical, it was impressive for its beauty, for which reason it was deemed one of the most representative pieces of Serbian national dress. The representational and aesthetic uniformity in elaborate decorations allows division into four groups: those worn in the regions of the western Balkans, the central Balkans, the border areas of the Balkans and the eastern Balkans. As regards the western Balkan region, the characteristic zubun was the one that was part of the Serbian and Croatian national dresses in the area of Sarajevo, in western Serbia as well as in western Macedonia and in central Albania. The long version, however, was characteristically worn throughout the Balkan Peninsula – apart from Bosnia and Herzegovina, they also appeared in Dalmatia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Metohija, Macedonia, eastern Serbia, and the Danube River basin. Migrations in the 18^th and 19^th centuries brought zubun further to the north, to the westernmost Serb-inhabited regions, in Slovenia and Croatia, where it was part of the national dress worn in Bela Krajina and Žumberak. The long version of zubun was also worn on the Peloponnesus, Euboea and in Epirus, in southern and southwestern Bulgaria and in northwestern parts of Albania.