Clothing, Traditional Afghanistan

Traditionally, Afghan dress reflects ethnic diversity and the socio-cultural, historical, and geopolitical dynamics of the region. The country and its people are positioned at the crossroads between the Arab, Persian, Turkish, and Asian empires. Consequently, Afghan dress shows strong aesthetic connections to areas contiguous to its borders: the Arab and Islamic Middle East and Persia, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and, to a lesser degree, Mughal India.
Since the 1920s, Afghanistan's leaders, in an effort to maintain control of both human and natural resources, have struggled with the definition of women's rights and independence as exemplified in the propriety of dress. Afghan dress also reflects other aspects of identity in a variety of inseparable yet interrelated ways: gendered and generational status; religious affiliation; rural and urban differences; stages of the life cycle; and everyday or special occasions. Afghan dress first and foremost distinguishes gender. Men wear tombaan, an overshirt (payraan), a hat or cap (kullaa), and footwear or boots. In addition to this basic ensemble, Afghan men wear a vest (waaskaat), another hat (pokool), and a shawl (shaal) during colder seasons.

Women customarily wear four items of dress: the pants (tombaan), an overdress (parahaan), a head covering (chaadar), and footwear (payzaar). This ensemble is referred to as kalaa Afghani, or Afghan women's dress.