If you've been on Instagram at any point this summer (and we suspect you have), you've probably noticed many, many members of the fashion set - from Leandra Medine and Pandora Sykes, to Anna Dello Russo and Giovanna Battaglia - wearing colorful, embroidered dresses with billowing sleeves, while staring into the ocean.
Though many fashion sites have been quick to call the increasingly popular style “bohemian,” the traditional piece, known as a vyshyvanka, has Eastern Europe roots. “The vyshyvanka is a part of a basic wardrobe in Ukraine, like the striped shirt in Paris or jeans in the United States,” Robert Mishchenko, one-half of the Ukranian design duo behind label March11, tells Refinery29. “It’s a traditional Ukrainian blouse that has been worn for centuries, and its patterns vary from one region of Ukraine to another. For example, southern regions usually have fruits and berries in patterns, while patterns in the northern regions are more geometric. The original blouse is white with black and red embroidery, but since colored threads have become more widely available, the vyshyvanka has become more colorful.”
