The woman's bonnet from the Upper Hron village of Heľpa is a familiar and quite unmistakable sight. It was worn - as were bonnets elsewhere in Slovakia - by women from the day they entered into marriage. Covering a head of firmly-pinned hair from the forehead to the nape of the neck, its edges protruded slightly at the temples and the central part was raised, thus giving the upper part of the head a protruding profile. Variation in the manner in which it was attached to the head accounted for differences in detail. The whole surface was embroidered or woven with geometrical patterns, and an interesting mix of rich, deep colours was employed. Earlier bonnets were predominantly in red, yellow and white, but shades of orange, blue, purple and green followed. Covered by a scarf only in colder weather, the bonnets were made all the more attractive by the great attention women lavished on their embellishment. The silhouette and decoration of the bonnet illustrated here are characteristic for the area as whole, with differences in detail between neighboring villages.

The designs for this issue are based on items from archive of the Slovak National Museums's Ethnography Museum in Martin.
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PhDr. Alžbeta Gazdíková