Serbian woman’s waistcoat (jelek) detail

A woman's short waistcoat. Square cut neckline, narrowing to a 'V'-shape at bottom. Made from mid-blue cotton velvet cloth. Extensive couched embroidery over most of front, beside square cut armholes and at hemline. Two four-petalled floral motifs with tendrils worked either side of centre back; a three-petalled blossom motif below. All worked in couched gold- and silver- metal-wrapped thread, rectangular pieces of metal threaded together, brass metal sequins, coloured plastic sequins and tiny red plastic beads. Two red/orange silk tassels either side of centre front opening. Fastened with single metal hook and eye. Orange synthetic plaited braiding worked at all edges and outlining small collar. Lined with printed tabby cotton cloth: white, yellow, green,blue and black floral print of small flowers with tendrils on a maroon 'ground'.

The printed cotton lining dates probably from the 1920s and 1930s. The flowers and leaves of the front flaps are done in purl work, where the wire is wrapped round a rod to create a tube which is then cut into pieces, threaded and sewn down to form the pattern. Here a square rod has created a square-section tube.
For examples of similar waistcoats from Sarajevsko polje (central Bosnia), see Zorislava Čulić, 'Costumes Nationaux de Bosnie-Herzégovine, Mational Museum of Sarajevo, 1963, pl. XXI, and V. Salopek, 'Danses et Costumes de Yougoslavie, Zagreb 1987, p. 58, the waistcoats in a similar blue with gold braiding. In both instances the waistcoats have the same square-cut front opening and short collar with diagonal ends to the front flaps. They are worn by young women over a white chemise with woven wool belt and by married women with white blouse and Ottoman style trousers, see J. Bjeladinović, ‘Serbian Ethnic Dress in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, Belgrade 2011, p. 113, pl. 177, where a similar waistcoat with orange edging is just visible beneath the outer coat. See also Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Barbara Belle Sloan, 'Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe. A History in Layers', Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, 2013, p. 171, Fig. 2.24 for a closely similar example.
This waistcoat has also been compared to those in the Ottoman taste worn in Vranje in southern Serbia but the Vranje waistcoats are a different shape with all-over gold braiding and buttons, worn over a white blouse with Ottoman-style silk trousers belted at the waist and gathered at the ankles into decorative cuffs (see Salopek 1987, p. 82).