An exhibition of Polish silk belts will open in the Polish city of Sosnowiec, Historykon reports.
The periodical presents a short story on when and how the Polish nobility began wearing belts, and who made and brought them.
The embroidered belts began to be considered as an important detail of noblemen’s costume as early as in the first half of the 14th century. Because the belt fashion had arrived from the East, the workshops were given Persian names, whereas the belts were made by Armenians, who were sponsored by Polish magnates.
Belts from Turkey were popular in the 16-17th centuries: they were imported to Poland by the Armenian traders from Lvov. Since the second half of the 17th century, expensive Persian belts had also appeared in Poland. They were 4-5 m long and about 60 cm wide.
After the Afghan conquest in 1722, the trade with Persia stopped. Since the Polish elite still honored belts, the weavers moved to Turkey from Iran, and from there to the eastern regions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The first workshops appeared in the city of Stanisław, Ivano-Frankivsk city of modern Ukraine, as well as other cities. The most famous workshop was founded in Slutsk, located in the territory of modern Belarus. Head of the workshop, Prince Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł, put Armenian weaver Jan Madjarski (Hovhannes Majaryan)—and after him his son, Leon—in charge of it.
