A shapan is a men’s outer garment, a spacious robe of straight cut with long and wide sleeves. It was made of different fabrics, light and dense, monochrome and colored. In cold weather, the robe was insulated with a layer of wool or cotton wool. To keep warm, men could wear several robes, one on top of the other. Wealthy Kazakhs wore two or even three robes simultaneously at any time of the year to emphasize their social status.

The shapan from the museum’s collection is made of black cotton velvet. It was handmade, using black and white threads. The piece consists of two front panels and a back. The latter was sewn from two rectangular pieces of fabric. Triangular gussets were added to the outer edges of the front panels to create a wrap-over.

The long sleeves of the robe taper to the wrists. This item of clothing was embroidered with silk threads of red, yellow, white, green, blue and violet colors. Shapans were decorated with vegetal patterns using stylized images of pomegranate. While designing such robes, the craftsman applied the traditional tambour stitch, which was created with a crotchet on the fabric stretched on a tambour. This robe was probably decorated by one person.

It is known that Kazakhs did not have specialization in certain types of work, such as weavers of Bukhara. Women were engaged in felting, weaving various items, making mats, and embroidering. Almost every Kazakh woman had skills in various domestic crafts, which was facilitated by training girls from an early age. Kazakh women embroidered various parts of their clothes: sleeves, collars, hems and front parts of dresses, camisoles, open skirts, parts of wedding headdresses, robes, shirt collars, and skullcaps.

Embroidery had a relatively small share among other crafts of the Kazakh people and was not as diverse as the embroidery of Central Asian peoples. Researchers believe that the embroidery art of Kazakhs is a relatively late phenomenon among domestic crafts. This is confirmed by the limited range of elements in the decorative patterns.

Patterns used to decorate clothes often served as amulets. Kazakh craftswomen created embroidered items only to meet the needs of their own family or fulfill the order of the rich class, rather than for sale on the market.