Albanian traditional dress: xhubleta, plis and fustanella

The xhubleta: a bell of felt

The xhubleta is the most striking garment of the northern Albanian highlands. It is an undulating, bell-shaped skirt that hangs from the shoulders on two straps and swings out widely, most of all at the back. It is made of 13 to 17 strips and 5 pieces of felt, and the bodice and the part covered by the apron are of black crocheted wool. There is a narrow and a wide form.

Women and girls traditionally wore it from puberty on, and it showed their social and economic standing. Colour carried meaning too: today only two colours are used, white for unmarried and black for married women. That was not always so. A seventeenth-century author wrote that the xhubleta of the women of Kelmend had more colours than a peacock.

The embroidery is full of symbols: sun, moon and stars, eagles and serpents, many of them meant to protect the wearer. Some ornaments show hands, in a shape that recalls Illyrian amulets. Researchers have compared the bell shape with garments on Neolithic and Bronze Age figurines from the Balkans and on Roman-era monuments, where goddesses and dancers wear similar skirts. Such comparisons point to great age, but they are interpretations rather than an unbroken line.

Why UNESCO stepped in

Making a xhubleta is slow work. First the woven felt, shajak, has to be prepared; then it is cut, sewn and embroidered with its symbolic figures. Few women still master the whole process, and passing it on within the family has become rare.

The decline began in the socialist period. From the 1960s women had to work in agricultural cooperatives, where the heavy garment was impractical, and collectivisation led to a shortage of the raw materials needed to make it. In 2022 UNESCO therefore inscribed the xhubleta, its craftsmanship and its forms of use, on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

The plis: white felt for the head

The plis, also called qeleshe, is a brimless skullcap of white wool felt, made from a single piece and moulded to the shape of the head. The word qeleshe is usually traced back to lesh, the Albanian word for wool. Its shape tells where it comes from: in the northern highlands it is hemispherical, around Kukës it looks like a cone with the top cut off, and in the south, especially around Gjirokastër and Vlora, it is taller.

A plis is always made by hand. In the bazaar of Kruja the wool is beaten with a bow-like tool until the fibres knot into felt; it is then washed and shrunk, two pressed pieces are joined with soap instead of glue, and the cap is shaped on a wooden form, dried, shaved smooth and rubbed with a wooden tool until it is firm.

The white cap is old. As early as 1322 the Irish Franciscan Symon Semeonis described the white hat of the Albanians, low at the front and raised at the back, and noted that they had a language of their own. In the struggle for independence the plis became the headgear of fighters such as Isa Boletini and Azem and Shota Galica, and during the Albanian national awakening the white version was declared a distinctly Albanian costume. At traditional weddings in the Tirana region men still wear it today.

The fustanella: sixty pleats of linen

The fustanella is a white pleated skirt worn by men, sometimes compared to a kilt. In the nineteenth century it was the characteristic dress of Albanian men and was worn in all areas where Albanians lived. The Albanian version has around sixty pleats and was made of heavy, home-woven linen, long enough to cover thigh and knee.

Making it ready to wear was a craft of its own: the skirts were dipped in melted sheep fat, which made them waterproof and less visible from a distance, and then pressed into pleats with cold irons. In the south it was everyday dress until the 1920s, when Western-style clothing from local tailors took over. In the northern mountains it was worn over tight trousers called tirq, mostly on formal occasions such as settling disputes.

Where the fustanella comes from is debated. A terracotta figurine from Durrës of the fourth century shows a man in a pleated skirt, and Illyrian, Roman and ancient Greek roots have all been proposed. Today both Albania and Greece regard it as part of their national costume. The name probably goes back via Italian fustagno to medieval Latin fustaneum, a type of cloth.

From costume to inspiration

Hardly anyone wears these garments in everyday life any more. They appear at weddings, folk festivals and in ethnographic museums such as the one in Kruja. But their language lives on: the white of the plis, the black and red of the embroidery, the protective signs on the xhubleta. Anyone designing clothes with Albanian roots today draws on this vocabulary, not to copy it, but to carry it into the present.

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The eagle, pressed into leather

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1. UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Xhubleta, skills, craftsmanship and forms of usage (2022)
2. Wikipedia: Xhubleta
3. Wikipedia: Qeleshe
4. Wikipedia: Fustanella