مطالعه تطبیقی پوشش زنان در سفرنامه ها و نگاره های دوره صفویه

One of the historical events which was more pronounced in the Safavid period and had a significant effect on Safavid clothing was the arrival of Europeans in Iran which marked a part of the Safavid written history through their travelogues. In addition to travelogues, the paintings of that period can also be used for investigating the Safavid women’s clothing. Using a comparative study, this article tries to investigate how the images and different issues related to Safavid women’s clothing were reflected in paintings and travelogues of the very era. Therefore, the most important travelogues on women’s clothing written in Safavid period have been studied and their contents have been compared with Safavid paintings. This is a theoretical study which seeks to answer the following questions by applying comparative method and using library resources as well as studying the contents of travelogues and paintings: How has Safavid women’s clothing been reflected in travelogues and the paintings of this period and how much are they matched with each other? Also why travelogues should be used along with paintings for investigating the Safavid women’s clothing? One of the reasons to take advantage of travelogues along with paintings is the lack of women’s garment due to worn-out silk and cotton used in them, changes in women’s clothing due to the arrival of Western culture and so on. The research findings indicate that the contents of travelogues are not reliable in some cases due to changes of Safavid clothing. For example, women’s cassock in travelogues’ pictures is up to their leg whereas in some figures we see that cassock became much shorter and reached above the knee. A similar case happened in the design of women’s comfortable shoes and because of this the contents of travelogues alone are not enough to investigate Safavid women’s clothing but they can be considered as valid documents along with paintings.