Toreador suit

The traditional traje de luces or suit of lights consists of fitted knee-length pants, vest, jacket, tie, pink stockings, and cape, and has remained unchanged for nearly two hundred years. The suits are quite expensive and take up to a month to create, with several seamstresses working in conjunction. The most traditional are densely embroidered in metallic gold and silver braid, beads, and sequins.




Stewart Culin (1858–1929) was the Brooklyn Museum’s first Curator of Ethnology from 1903 to 1929. He built the collection of its new department by conducting expeditions across the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Between 1920 and 1923, he collected Central and Eastern European costumes in what are now Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, among other neighboring countries.

Culin collected folk art objects with particular interest in their socio-cultural and historic significance. Through meticulous record keeping of field notes, correspondence, chapbooks, and clippings, he sought to document the cultural life of the region and the circumstances of each acquisition. These materials are now held in the Culin Archival Collection at the Brooklyn Museum Archives. [1]




[1] Deirdre E. Lawrence and Deborah Wythe. "Guide to the Culin Archival Collection." Brooklyn Museum Archives. https://opencollection.brooklynmuseum.org/research/culin/