What is a kaftan?

When I buy clothes for my Pink Parrot range I usually make my choices based on what I think my customers will like or what I find interesting. I look at the clothes people have pinned onto Pinterest, or I visit fashion sites like Chictopia where real people post images of their favourite outfits, to get a feel for what people want to wear. I don’t usually think about the traditions that might have inspired the items or the cross-cultural influences that have gone into the design, but I did when I bought this purple ‘Adini’ kaftan top. It occurred to me that the kaftan has been a clothing staple for centuries and it has a fascinating history.

So I did a bit of research and this is what I found out. The kaftan originated in Persia as a floor length garment with buttons down to the waist. It was worn by high ranking court officials where the fabric and intricacy of the design indicated the rank of the officer. From the 14^th to the 17^th century kaftans were worn by Ottoman sultans and were made from velvet or brocade with silver or gold metallic threads interwoven into them. Some of these kaftans survive today and are so expensive and luxurious that they are kept in a collection at the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul.

Persian officials and Ottoman sultans would often give elaborately made kaftans as ‘robes of honour’ (hilyat) to foreign dignitaries and state officials, or they would give them to local officials as rewards.

The Kaftan was, and still is to some extent, viewed as an Islamic garment but it has been worn throughout the centuries by muslims and non-muslims.

West Africa and Morocco adopted the kaftan and it is still worn in both countries today. They wear it in very different ways though. In West Africa both men and women wear brightly coloured kaftans but in Morocco it is only worn by women and the colours tend to be slightly more muted than in West Africa.

In Russia the word ‘kaftan’ has a different meaning and relates to a suit with tight sleeves which was worn by peasants in the 18^th and 19^th centuries as a tunic over their clothes.

People in South East Asia wear the kaftan on a daily basis but they wear it as a casual garment which keeps them cool on hot days.  South East Asian kaftans are usually made of Batik fabric.

Kaftans didn’t make it to Western culture until the hippie era in the 1960’s and 1970’s when young people wanting to rebel against capitalist values looked to the East for inspiration. The kaftan was the perfect symbol of their rebellion as it was so different to the more formal fashions of the 1950’s that their parents were wearing. The hippie era changed the kaftan’s future and catapulted it onto the world’s fashion stage where it has remained.

Today kaftans have a multitude of uses from every day wear to beachwear to special occasion wear and they are popular across the world. 

Got anything to add? Please leave a comment.