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ZAGORKA’S CHIC-SHAIKACHE a blend of traditional and fashionable

„When the Chinese hear that I worked with Bata Živojinović, they’re going to rush to Tkački dvor and grab these chic-shaikache of mine“, jokes our hostess Zagorka Stojanović as we toast with homemade plum rakija on the porch of the almost 150-year-old house.

Foto: Sowa media

„I always add a little cumin to the rakija, and the blackberry sweet that I served you I prepare by myself, as well as the winter preserves“, she explains as we settle into chairs of cheerful pastel colors and unusual shapes. She met us on the country road, in front of a fence connected by intertwined branches, in colorful breeches with a purple chic-shaikacha on her head, dotted with motifs of Serbian rugs. Each of the four of us, in addition to the words of welcome, received a firm hug.

Zagorka Stojanović (Foto: Sowa media)

As we climb the narrow path to the house whose porch is decorated with Serbian rugs and a flag, Zagorka says that she „always wears a chic-shaikacha and bridge pants in winter, while in the summer I wear dresses, of course with chic-shaikacha“. „I sew 5-6 pieces of pants and dresses, so the cut is the same, only the patterns and materials are different.“

Foto: Sowa media

„Once they told me to buy at least a coat that wouldn’t be full of colors and I did that, and then at the local market, along the way, I also bought some old tapestries with wonderful orange flowers that I cut out and sewed onto that one-color piece of clothing. It looked great,“ she said.

Foto: Sowa media

We came to her because of the chic-shaikache, that Zagorka, the costume designer, breathed new life into. She explains that she came up with the idea ten years ago with the desire to turn a part of the traditional clothing into a fashion detail. „During my research, I discovered that the ethno cap is a metaphor for the firmament, which is also called the ‘heavenly cap’ because it symbolizes an overturned ‘solar boat’, which supports the shape of a šajkača, derived from ‘šajka’, a type of boat,“ Zagorka tells us.

Foto: Sowa media

In Serbian mythology, she adds, the cap is older than the head and a substitute for a man. „A Serb wants to do everything under the hood, but not two things: to be baptized and to eat.“ The god of the old Serbian faith also wears a cap, so it was customary to put it on the dead man’s head or to send a sick person’s cap to reading of  a healing prayer“, Zagorka tells us the results of her research.

Foto: Sowa media

She adds that the Chinese philosopher and reformer Confucius from the 5th century BC also wore a similar cap, that this type of cap is also found in the national costume of the ancient Persians, and that St. John the Baptist is wearing one on his head on the fresco in St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai.

Foto: Sowa media

„It was interesting to me that I was breathing new life into a neglected part of our tradition“, explains Zagorka while in her warehouse, which has been converted into an exhibition space, we try out various designs of chic-shaikache- with flowers, leaves, stars, hearts, motifs from old tapestry, sequins, with palm trees, one-color, two-color, in the colors of the Serbian flag… „I sew from the materials I find, everything is mostly sold, and I mostly make to order because they are mostly bought by our people who live abroad,“ she says

Foto: Sowa media

With a constant smile on her face, she tells us that „she only started living and enjoying life at the age of 73“, when she sold her apartment in Belgrade and bought a property in Rakari, a village near Banja Vrujca. She thoroughly renovated two dilapidated houses with a garden owned by the surname namesake Stojanović – from a warehouse she made a Weaving Palace, and under a big old linden tree „Pozornica pod lipom“ where her friends from the art world visit during the summer days. „Time flows differently here and I have time for everything. Here I have time to think, to read, no one burdens me. I am free“, she tells us.

Foto: Sowa media

After chatting on the porch, Zagorka led us into the house, which is more precisely a studio with a bedroom and a kitchen. In the small hallway, for a moment, everything looked like entering a rainbow, because before us spread out a colorful array of colors in all their beauty. Floor-to-ceiling high shelves filled with wide spools of wool and multi-colored thread were the first things we encountered. On the floor, piles of brightly colored fabrics and numerous balls of the same kind of wool awaited us. On the side wall stood two vertical looms on which the icons were woven almost to the end, the only pieces of fabric of muted hues interspersed with shimmering threads.

Foto: Sowa media

„This is monastic work. The rhythm of weaving strives for slowness, in contrast to the everyday life of modern skills. Threads are arranged row by row and thoughts calm down as they do during the prayer,“Zagorka Stojanović introduces us to the art of weaving , an applied artist, costume designer, scenographer and tapestry artist, who has so far equipped over a hundred theater plays, numerous films, television dramas and shows.

Foto: Sowa media

She explains to us that she learned the craft from old weavers in rural backwaters. „They didn’t know how to explain to me how or why, the knowledge is in their fingers. The skills that have been associated with survival for so long are part of the collective memory. Man has an intimate, atavistic need for warmth that is ignored by the vast spaces of modern architecture, cold materials – concrete, steel, glass,“ she says.

Foto: Sowa media

She reminds us that parts of the secret of this ancient art have been preserved to this day and can be found in language metaphors – feelings intertwine, stories are interwoven, a whole life follows a thread with which it is possible to weave miracles. Her iconography, as she says herself, is based on almost canonically faithfully woven icons, according to the Byzantine key, and her five woven icons were exhibited in New York and Paris. Zagorka’s tapestries and iconography, with golden threads and the Mother of God of Akhtyr, reached private collections and museums, as far as North and South Africa. „I take on the beauty of the spirit of nameless weavers. All weavers weave on the same thread because it is an ancient skill. When I weave I feel between heaven and earth. Weaving represents the internal records of tradition in full fidelity“, Zagorka confided to us.

Foto: Sowa media

In the evening, she escorted us to the gate, each of us with a chic-shaikacha in hand. „I turn 81 in the summer, I’ll see you then. I can’t wait for the celebration because many friends from Belgrade, Serbia and abroad will come“, Zagorka told us, following us with a childlike twinkle in her eyes. In addition to modern shaikacha, we also took with us, from Zagorka, a part of the breadth of views on life, but also a part of love for folk traditions and our people. Enough for us.

Author: Biljana Živančević

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