L'escolo di Tourre
Châteaurenard de Provence

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Our costumes

We wear the costumes from the end of the XIX th century. The different kinds of headdress and of costumes are mostly linked to the life place, to the activitiesand the events that mark the arlesian woman's life. Consequently, we find them in the different kinds of dances.

The parlour dances are performed in rich costumes in silk and taffetas, et fichus of thin lace (white fichus in the summer, in rich cloth in the winter). A precious ribbon in silk and coloured velvet ornaments the headdress. It's the celebration costume .

The Sunday costume of the arlesian woman, less wealthy, consists of a coloured skirt, and a white fichu. The ribbon might be in a coloured velvet or in deep blue one.


 The dances tied to the seasons and to the daily works make appear cotton costumes, and pieces of embroidery. Ladies and young women wear a dark velvet ribbon or the «cravate», long piece of cloth, depending on the circumstances : there are the «artisan» costume or the «arlesian in cravate» costume.

The girls («mireilles») always wear a cotton skirt , shorter than the women's ones, with a white or a coloured fichu depending on if they're all dressed up or if they're going to work.

To work in the fields, every girl or woman wears a lighter costume, with a white shirt and a headscarf instead of the arlesian headdress.

Little girls always keep the white child's bonnet, the white shirt and the cotton skirt.

At last, the men, young and elder, wear the «taillole» (belt), shirt and waistcoat, more or less wealthy depending on the circumstances.

Every performer displays different costumes during the exhibitions.