White cotton jacket with gold embroidery

The embroidered jacket was probably worn by men on special occasions.‖ In the Ottoman Empire, embroidered textiles were used in everyday life and also during holidays such as weddings, circumcision celebrations and birthdays. Hand-embroidered textiles were a symbol of the status and wealth of the woman's family and also represented her talent as an embroiderer. Household embroidery was made not only for personal use but also for trade. Men and women both embroidered. Men worked in studios and usually with expensive materials such as pearls, gold and semi-precious stones. Women mainly worked at home. Embroidering was part of a girl's education. They embroidered not only for their own dowry but also for sale. Today dowries in small towns as well as in big cities often consist of embroidered textile. Although hand-embroidered cloths still exist, machine-embroidered textiles are increasing.‖ The fabric to be embroidered (formerly much silk now cotton and linen) is stretched on a round embroidery frame, kasnak, or a rectangular frame, gergef, which is on legs so that the embroiderer can sit by it. The design is applied with a template: a piece of paper into which the drawing is punctured with a needle. With a muslin purse, containing charcoal powder, one embroiders on the punctured drawing. On the canvas the black dot drawing is slightly clarified with watercolor and brush (I).) There are dozens of types of embroidery stitches known with eloquent names such as balik sirti (dense herringbone stitch), sarma (satin stitch), puan (satin stitch for rounded areas), sira isi (double running stitch in straight, duz, diagonal, verev, or round version, done done done), pesent (running stitch on accurately counted threads of the fabric), goreme (outline embroidery), lokum (straw braiding), kesme (pulling out fabric threads and interweaving them with the needle) and many others (I).\Embroidery is the most common form of textile decoration in Anatolia. It is part of clothing and home decoration. However, it is also sometimes used as a gift wrapping material. \The oldest preserved embroidery dates back to the 16th century. The 16th century was the height of embroidery in the Ottoman Empire. Roses, tulips, carnations, artichokes and pomegranates were embroidered in a stylized and naturalistic way. Red, blue, green, yellow, white and black were the most common colors used in Ottoman embroidery until the 18th century. From the 16th century onwards people also often used sim for embroidery. Sim is thread made of gold and silver with the help of a so-called crushing mill. Istanbul played an important role in the production of sim in so called sim mills (simkeshane). This was an expensive material purchased by wealthy families.From the second half of the 18th century, the influence of European art and technology in Ottoman culture and way of life could also be seen in embroidery. Impressive examples of this arise in 18th and 19th century embroidery. These are characterized by motifs such as landscapes, houses, mosques, forest flowers, saints' graves, tents, gardens, tombstones, ancient letters, geometric shapes, people and animals, ships, flags, weapons and musical instruments. The colour palette also became richer. Thanks to chemical dyes the embroideries got more lively colours. One experimented a lot with depth by applying shadow tints (II). The traditional techniques of embroidery that demand a lot of patience and talent are not used anymore in the 20th century. These techniques are now only taught in special girls institutes (specialized handicraft schools). Machine work nowadays often replaces hand work with gold and silver thread being replaced by copper thread and silk by nylon.‖ The pattern is first drawn with brown paint and then embroidered with brown paint. The pattern was first drawn or stamped with brown paint, then embroidered over with a double white cotton thread, over which the flat stitches in narrow gold tape were executed. The two big flower ornaments are done in flat stitch (I).