Anna Chlupová
The folk cap has always held a special position in female folk costume. It symbolized the status of its holder: the most expensive materials were used to make it and it had sophisticated design and decoration. From the artistic point of view, it represents the perfect textile miniature. Folk caps are known for their variety of colours. In some regions they were very complicated, composed of five to seven parts. The oldest folk caps were sewn from homemade flax and cotton fibres. At the end of the 19th century various manufactured materials started to be used. Their high price prevented them from being used for other parts of textile accessories. In the majority of regions in Slovakia, the dominating artistic element was embroidery, which decorated the curved areas of folk caps. The colourfulness of embroidery has also undergone development – from original modesty it shifted to more advanced combinations and colourfulness.