Wed Parti
Mi-Parti ( French - Latin : half-divided) describes a mostly vertical division of a piece of clothing (for example stocking legs) in different colors, for example red on the right, blue on the left.
In the course of the 11th century, the marriage of Emperor Otto II with the Byzantine princess Theophanu made the influence of Byzantine fashion more noticeable, the characteristic of which was increasingly tight clothing. A new predilection for ostentatious fabrics of Byzantine origin and the resulting strong colors in clothing led to Mi-Parti, the assembly of clothing from different colored fabrics. This Mi-Parti was first used for trousers, which in the 13th and 14th centuries became increasingly narrow and, with feet, into long leggings nested on the bruoch . Initially, the color division only indicated the dependency of the wearer and was borne by servants.
By the 15th century, a true color symbolism had developed from this, with which, among other things, the state of mind of the wearer was expressed. The symbolic character of colors and clothing was already known in the high Middle Ages of the 11th and 12th centuries, because there were few people who could read and write. The colors or the clothing indicated a particular stand or group. It could distinguish or stigmatize.
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Mi-Parti disappeared from fashion; However, it remained a fool's attribute and is still preserved today in the costume of fools .
literature
- Veronika Mertens: Mi-Parti as a sign. On the meaning of a divided dress and a divided figure in the class costume, in literary and visual sources as well as in Carnival custom from the Middle Ages to the present. (Research on cultural history, edited by Dietz-Rüdiger Moser, Vol. 1), Remscheid 1983 ISBN 3-922055-86-9
