Old Siamese Costumes

The following was written in the 1850’s by Monsignor Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix.

(left) A Siamese woman of King Mongkut’s era (right) A Siamese man of King Mongkut’s era. Formerly they shaved their heads and only left a round spot on top of the head where they wore the hair sticking up like a brush. The women cut their hair short, instead of shaving them off and they wore the same circular hair tuft as the men.

The dress of the Siamese is very simple: they go about barefoot and without a hat. As their only dress they have a piece of painted Indian cloth they attach to their belts pulling back the two ends in the back (that is what is called a langouti). This way of dressing is common for both sexes. Moreover, young girls and women put around their necks a silk scarf so that one of the ends falls over the shoulder in the back; while the men are satisfied with a piece of white cloth they sometimes use as a belt, sometimes as a handkerchief, to wipe off sweat, sometimes in lieu of a turban to protect them from sun rays.

People of modest means rarely use an umbrella. Those high placed, on the contrary, always have one. The common people, men and women, use some kind of light basket made of palm leaves instead of a hat. When the lower ranking meet their masters, they must have a belt of silk around their wastes. The King and Princes do not at all differ from their subjects in the shape of their dress but only in the richness of dress and usually they wear Chinese sandals.

(left) A high-ranking Siamese from King Mongkut’s time (right) Two simaese from King Chulalongkorn’s time (1868-1910). Under the government of King Chulalongkorn the Siamese males and females wore their hair combed backwards without shaving any parts of their heads. While formerly only prominent women wore a breast shawl, after King Chulalongkorn returned from Europe, he issued a regulation that all women had to wear a shawl.