Antique Pair of Charogh Ethnic Shoes from Turkey

Antique Pair of Charogh Ethnic Shoes from Turkey.
These collectible Museum Kurdish shoes are known as charoghs and were made in Khorasan province in north western Turkey.
Hand-crafted and made from a single piece of rawhide, this type of shoe is generally known as a moccasin and has a very ancient lineage. Moccasins were once the norm in shoe-making and served as basic foot protection for many people in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas long before the invention of separate soles and uppers. These Kurdish 'moccasins' are made of rawhide, untanned leather.
To make these Kurdish charogh (also called shom, patabeh or palik), a single piece of leather was softened until flexible enough to be cut to a suitable size and carefully shaped by moulding and pleating. They were sewn together and decorated by hand with colored cotton stitching. A form of button-holing has been used around the top and metal studs and cotton pom-poms decorate the shoes at the front. An inverted triangular leather patch was stitched to the heel to hold the shape and embroidered with a six-pointed star in yellow cotton.
While ordinary unembellished charoghs were mostly worn by peasants, young men and tribal chiefs had highly decorated charoghs like these hand embroidered with beautiful stitching.
Antique rare handmade ethnic costume leather shoes circa 1900.
Collectible Ethnic Museum part of a festival costume.