The general evolution of oriental dress inevitably affected Uzbek national dress, though some of its distinctive and unique features have been preserved. Of course, modern caftan looks quite different from what it was, say, a hundred years ago. In the West the word caftan has been known since the Mongolian invasion and was borrowed by several languages.

The traditional shirt kuilak was the everyday men’s wear. First its length went beyond the knees, later it was shortened to reach only the middle of the thigh. This shirt had two types of collar: one was sewn to the edge of a vertical cut; the other was the border of just a horizontal shoulder-level cut. The male residents of Tashkent and Ferghana regions wore the loose kimono-like shirt yakhtak. It was made from cotton fabric and was worn by both the young and the elderly. Sometimes the collar was bordered by a decorative tape jiyak. Continuation >>>