Worn as Expressions of National Pride

Sandra Matisone feels every inch at home in the fusty elegance of the Washington Club, amid a sea of little black dresses and business suits. But at this diplomatic soiree, standing by the buffet of baby chops and lingonberry sauce, she stands out just a bit.

After all, Matisone is swathed head to toe in thousand-year-old Latvian style (discreetly excluding the pagan fertility symbols her countrywomen once considered de rigueur).

Matisone showed off the elaborate costume of her native Latvia at a recent embassy party. The 24-year-old Latvian attache bought the woolen vest and skirt--which typically comes with thunder, sun and fertility symbols sewn into the pattern--to express her ethnic pride.

Although increasingly rare, foreign ceremonial garb still makes persistent appearances at events in the capital city, even when the rest of the diplomatic corps insists on wearing the best of Bloomingdale’s. Sometimes, the choice is more about politics than style.

“The dress is so important when I am abroad,” said Matisone, sweltering in thick layers and a heavy woolen shawl without complaint. “I am proud. I want to remind people where I am from.”

At the annual State of the Union addresses, embassy parties, charity balls, black-tie affairs and inaugural celebrations, a handful are decidedly not dressed in off-the-rack ensembles. Consulting with seamstresses in far-flung corners of the world, they emerge at these bashes in clothes with daggers, headpieces, veils, epaulets and other heavy-duty historical accessories.

The Latvian ambassador, Ojars Eriks Kalnins, recently applauded his wife for ditching her usual tailored suit for a long, colorful folk outfit at a party for Latvia’s 80th anniversary. In his speech, he used her outfit as proof that Latvia’s ability to “combine the old and the new” traditions was reason enough to earn it a long-sought spot in the European Union.

So maybe that’s stretching things a bit. But those who wear traditional garb can make an entrance that is as much policy as fashion statement. “I believe very strongly, as a small country with an ongoing political problem, we must keep our traditions and project our traditions to the world,” said Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, ambassador of Cyprus, who wore her Cypriot costume to a recent party at her embassy.

It was a highly symbolic move, given that Turkish troops have occupied the northern half of the Mediterranean island since 1974. Cypriots living on the southern end of the island are more closely allied with Greece. Recognizing this, Kozakou-Marcoullis notified her country’s foreign minister, hoping not to stir an international episode by stepping out in a homespun outfit recognized by Greek Cypriots as an expression of national pride.

“The Cypriots, of course, were very proud I dared to do it,” Kozakou-Marcoullis said of her decision to wear the dress, tailor-made for her in the region where legend says Aphrodite was created from the foam of the sea. The minister said, “Are you sure you want to do this?’ I said ‘Yes.’ It is not customary here in Washington, but I was determined to wear it.”

For weeks, Greek Cypriots called the embassy, thanking her for the gesture.

National dress is, indeed, a complicated fashion prospect.

Selwa “Lucky” Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan’s former protocol chief, remembers Peter Helemisi Mtetwa, the Swaziland ambassador, coming to the White House barefoot on a brisk day in November 1983, wearing only what looked like a loincloth.

The get-up shocked the protocol staff, who prayed that the dignitary would resist the urge to bend in a deep bow for Reagan, lest the cloth fly open. Secret Service agents, meanwhile, were busy trying to confiscate the ambassador’s ceremonial spear.

“I was much too diplomatic to say anything at all to the ambassador,” said Roosevelt, who made the story a Washington staple in her book, “Keeper of the Gate.” The spear, she said, was a particularly memorable accessory. “It was the only time someone brought in a potential weapon,” she said. “The Yebenese in ceremonial occasions wear their guns, but I don’t remember ever seeing that. The whole thing could have been very embarrassing.”

So go the lives of Washington’s fashion adventurers. It is not always easy. Sometimes the critics are watching back home as well as here. Bryndis Schram, the wife of Iceland’s ambassador, was attacked by her kinsmen for improvising on their national garb.

In Isafjordur, “the Fjord of Ice,” a far-northern city where traditional dress is as common as the local delicacy of smoked lamb heads, Schram often wore the customary gold and silver-threaded outfit. But when Schram arrived in Washington, she ditched elements of the $2,000 costume that did not fit the city scene--including a white apron she said made her look like a housewife and a tiny cap that smashed her hair.

“Of course, I was criticized for it,” Schram said, after pictures of her at a White House reception and a French embassy party without cap or apron made it into the Icelandic press.

Schram, who wears her national dress more often than most embassy spouses, is still a strong believer in the tradition. “I feel the longer you stay away, the more you love your country,” she says. “In this dress, I am paying respect for my forefathers.”

Others see a far more utilitarian purpose. Ingvild Bryn, a Norwegian journalist here, said, “You never have to be afraid that anyone else at a Washington party will be wearing the same dress as you.”