Contemporary Clothing of the Romani People

  Modern Romani Designers:      Erika Varga, a Roma woman from Hungary, designed the high fashion brand Romani Design. The brand is devoted to creating unique designs of clothing that are directly based on Romani fashion and are a way for the Roma diaspora to connect to their culture. Furthermore, Romani Design also often holds classes for disadvantaged children. She was named Glamour Women of the Year in 2012.  Sondra Celli is a Roma designer that works in the USA. She is known for her large, blinged dresses and for being on the tv show  My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding. She has gained notoriety for her work on the tv show and has been published in many magazines; Vogue, Town & Country, Harper’s Bazaar, New York Magazine, New York Times, Modern Bride, The Boston Globe, The Sun, and The Huffington Post. Clothing inspired by Romani Fashion MA RA MI, a brand created by Romina designer Andra Clitan, is inspired by clothing from her native area of Maramure...

Gábor Roma Community:     The Gábors are a Kalderash (traditionally coppersmiths or metal workers - speak a Vlax dialect) Romani group who live mostly in Tîrgu Mure ş and the greater Transylvania area. However, you can find them in major cities all over Europe, but those are just temporary abodes for them. You see, family and the idea of the community are major facets of the Gábor culture. To not come to either a wedding, funeral, or All Saint's Day, is seen as being greedy and only caring about money because one is not coming to an event where there is "a communal sense of belonging." Religion is also a major unifying feature, with everyone belonging to the Adventist Church, which they said helped them renounce their "gypsy-like habits" and become more "civilized." They are a very closed-off group that tends to believe themselves superior over other Romani groups in the area, such as the Gergovanis, who represent a state passed that the Gábors already...

 The Roots and Basic Information:       First of all, I want to premise this blog post by stating I will be using the words, Roma and Romani, to describe this population of people and their unique culture instead of the word "gypsy." This is because of how this word is considered a slur by Roma people due to how it paints them as convincing and uncultured thieves. The Roma are a group of nomads that traveled that originally emigrated from NorthWestern India over 1000 years ago. From there, they traveled to Persia and other areas before finally making it into Western Europe in the 14th century. A significant portion of the Roma culture, particularly the language, clothing, and food, have close similarities to modern Punjab culture although European influences are also distinctly evident. The Roma were given the name "gypsy" after Europeans mistakenly thought they were from Egypt.  ‘The girl with the headscarf’- a Roma killed in a concentration camp....